Leaving Your House Empty in Winter: How to Keep It Safe While You're Away
Holiday travel means a lot of Oklahoma houses sit empty during the coldest weeks of the year. Here's how to set yours up so a cold snap or an ice storm doesn't turn a trip into a flooded homecoming.
Thanksgiving and the December holidays are when a lot of Oklahoma houses sit dark and empty for a week or more — and it happens to land in the coldest, iciest stretch of the year. That combination is where trouble hides. A house that would ride out a cold snap just fine with people in it, noticing a chilly room or a dripping faucet, can quietly freeze and flood when nobody’s there to catch the first sign.
We get the calls every winter, usually the day someone gets back from a trip: a ceiling stained brown, a carpet squishing underfoot, a pipe that froze on the coldest night and let go. Almost all of it is preventable with half an hour of setup before you lock the door. Here’s how to leave your house so you can actually enjoy the trip instead of watching the Oklahoma forecast from three states away.
Don’t turn the heat off — turn it down
The instinct to save money by killing the heat in an empty house is the single most expensive mistake you can make in winter. Your thermostat isn’t just keeping the living room comfortable; it’s keeping the water inside your walls, attic, and crawlspace above freezing.
Set the thermostat back to save energy, but keep it running — around 55°F is the usual recommendation for an empty house in the cold. If you have pipes running through an unheated garage, along an exterior wall, or in a drafty crawlspace, lean toward the warmer side. The few dollars you’d save going colder are nothing next to the cost of a single burst pipe.
A couple of extra moves help the heat reach those vulnerable spots: open the cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so warm air can circulate around the pipes, and leave interior doors open so the whole house stays an even temperature.
Shut off the water — the move that prevents disasters
Here’s the one that turns a potential catastrophe into a non-event. For any trip longer than a day or two, shut off the water at the main valve before you leave, then open a faucet or two to drain the pressure out of the lines.
The logic is simple: a frozen pipe is only a disaster if there’s water behind it. With the main valve closed, even a worst-case crack has nothing feeding it — instead of a line running full-bore into your drywall for five days straight, you’ve got a trickle of whatever was trapped in the pipe. This five-minute step is the difference between coming home to a dry house and coming home to a remodeling project.
A few exceptions: leave the water on if you have a fire-sprinkler system, and don’t shut it off if your heat relies on it (a boiler system). If you’re not sure where your main shut-off is, now’s the time to find it — not the week you’re trying to pack.
Get ahead of a power outage
Everything above assumes the power stays on. The problem is that the storms most likely to hit while you’re gone — ice storms that coat the lines and drag them down — are exactly the ones that knock the power out for days. An empty house with no heat in a multi-day freeze is the classic recipe for frozen pipes.
You can’t control the grid, but you can hedge against it. If your home simply can’t afford to go cold while you’re away — older plumbing, pipes in exposed spots, or you’re gone for an extended stretch — a standby generator sized to carry your furnace means an ice-storm outage doesn’t touch your heat at all. For most people, though, the practical answer is the next item on the list: a human.
Line up someone to check on it
Technology is great until the power’s out and nobody knows. The oldest trick is still the best one: ask a neighbor, friend, or family member to look in on the house every day or two.
Give them a key, show them where the main water shut-off and the electrical panel are, and tell them what “normal” looks like — the thermostat setting, where to glance for water. Someone who can confirm the heat’s running after a cold front, catch a problem in its first hours instead of its fifth day, and kill the water if something’s wrong is worth more than any gadget. If you have a smart thermostat, set it to alert your phone if the indoor temperature drops below a threshold — a quiet signal that the heat has failed while you’re away.
The quick pre-trip walk-through
With the big three handled — heat down, water off, eyes on the house — a short loop closes the gaps:
- Disconnect garden hoses and make sure outdoor spigots are drained and covered, if you haven’t already this season.
- Unplug what doesn’t need to run — countertop electronics, space heaters, the garage stuff. It trims phantom power draw and removes a fire risk you won’t be home to notice.
- Set a couple of lights on timers so the house doesn’t look obviously empty from the street.
- Toss the perishables and take out the trash, so you’re not greeted by a surprise.
- Confirm your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are working — your furnace will be cycling the whole time you’re gone.
- Leave the thermostat fan on “auto,” not “on,” so it’s not circulating air needlessly for a week.
The bottom line
Leaving your house for the holidays in the dead of an Oklahoma winter doesn’t have to be a gamble. Keep the heat on but turned down, shut off the water at the main, and ask someone to look in every couple of days — those three moves handle the vast majority of what goes wrong. The quick walk-through mops up the rest. Half an hour of setup before you leave buys you a trip where the house is the last thing on your mind.
If you’d rather head out knowing your plumbing, heating, and electrical are genuinely ready for a cold, empty week — or you come home to a stain or a drip that wasn’t there before — Graco helps homeowners across Edmond, Oklahoma City, and the surrounding metro. You’ll get flat-rate pricing you approve before any work begins. Call (405) 500-5333 and travel with one less thing to worry about.
Frequently asked questions
- What temperature should I set the thermostat to if I'm leaving in winter?
- Set it back to save energy, but not off — somewhere around 55°F is the common guidance for an empty house in cold weather. The goal isn't comfort, it's keeping the whole structure, including the pipes inside walls and in the attic or crawlspace, safely above freezing. Going lower to save a few dollars isn't worth it: a single burst pipe does more damage in an afternoon than a winter of heating an empty house. If any plumbing runs through an unheated garage or an exterior wall, lean toward the warmer end of that range.
- Should I shut off the water to the house before a winter trip?
- For a trip of more than a day or two, yes — it's the single best protection against a catastrophe. Shut off the main water valve and open a couple of faucets to relieve the pressure in the lines. With the water off, even if a pipe does freeze and crack, there's no supply feeding the leak, so the worst case is a small amount of trapped water instead of a line running wide open for days. Just don't shut the water off if your heating system needs it (a steam or hydronic boiler), and leave it on if you have a fire-sprinkler system.
- Is it enough to just leave the heat on, or do I need someone to check the house?
- Heat alone covers the normal case, but it assumes the power stays on — and an Oklahoma ice storm is exactly the event that takes the power down for days while you're gone. That's why having someone check in every day or two is the piece that ties it all together. A neighbor or friend who can confirm the heat is running, spot a problem early, and knows where your main water shut-off is can stop a small failure from becoming a frozen, flooded house before you're even home.