How Do I Get a Gulf Coast Home Ready for a Hard Freeze?

That the systems fail together. Days of sub-freezing temperatures pushed electric heating demand past what the Texas grid could supply, and rolling outages became extended ones — so homes lost heat not because furnaces broke, but because the power behind them disappeared, and then pipes froze in houses that had never been cold for that long. The lesson isn't panic; it's sequencing. Heat you can verify, pipes you can protect, and backup power you've decided about in advance turn a freeze warning from an emergency into an inconvenience. Our HVAC freeze-prep guide covers the equipment side in depth; this page is the whole-home version.

A heat pump keeps working below 32°, just less efficiently — and it does two things that scare people every freeze. First, it runs defrost cycles: the outdoor unit briefly reverses, steam rises off the coil, and the fan stops. That's normal. Second, your thermostat may show auxiliary heat or emergency heat: electric strip heaters backing up the heat pump when it can't keep pace. Aux heat cycling on automatically is normal in a hard freeze; what it isn't is cheap — strips draw several times the power of the heat pump itself, which is exactly why freezes strain the grid.

What's not normal: ice encasing the whole outdoor unit for hours (defrost isn't working), or aux heat running for days after the freeze ends (the heat pump may have failed and the strips are quietly carrying the house — you'll meet that on the electric bill). Both are call-us symptoms, and the troubleshooter walks the heating trees question by question.

• Drip faucets on exterior walls once temperatures head below freezing overnight — moving water resists freezing, and the drip costs pennies.
• Insulate exposed pipe: hose bibs (foam covers), attic and garage runs, and the pool equipment pad. Disconnect and drain garden hoses.
• Know where your main water shutoff is before you need it — a burst pipe with the main open floods a slab home in minutes.
• Do not wrap or cover a running heat pump. It needs airflow to heat your house. Covers are for equipment that's off, not equipment that's working.
• Condensate drains freeze too: high-efficiency furnaces and attic air handlers drain water that can ice up and shut the system down — one more reason the pre-season heating check earns its keep.

When ERCOT issues conservation appeals, the ask is real: the margin between rolling outages and a normal evening is measured in big-appliance loads. The moves that matter in a freeze: set the thermostat a few degrees lower and hold it steady (avoid big setbacks that trigger aux heat to catch up), run the dishwasher and dryer overnight or not at all, and skip the oven-as-heater idea entirely — it's a carbon-monoxide and fire risk, not a heating strategy. If you have a standby generator, know that a grid emergency is exactly when outage safety rules apply — and if you don't, decide before the next freeze whether that's the year's project. Panel-level load questions — what your service can actually carry — are the territory of our electrical panel guide.

Mostly the same readiness, with two winter-specific items. The battery: cold cranking is when weak batteries fail, and a standby that won't start in a freeze fails at the worst possible moment — battery test and terminals are the heart of a winter service. The fuel: natural-gas standbys held up well in 2021 for most homes, but portable owners should know gasoline demand spikes in a freeze exactly like a hurricane, and carburetors gummed by stale fuel are the classic winter no-start. Run the portable monthly, store fuel stabilized, and re-read the generator storm guide — every carbon-monoxide and backfeed rule applies identically in a freeze, and CO deaths spike in winter outages when people bring heat sources indoors.