Pipe Burst While You're Away: Prep Steps Before Holiday Travel
A burst pipe is a bad day when you're home. When you're away for the holidays, it's a bad week. Here's what to check before you leave so a cold snap or a failed fixture doesn't flood the house while nobody's there to stop it.
Holiday travel schedules put homes at the worst possible intersection: the house is empty for days at a time, right when winter weather is most likely to stress plumbing. A pipe that freezes or a supply line that fails on a Tuesday you're home gets caught in minutes. The same failure on a Tuesday you're in another state can run undetected for the entire trip.
None of this requires expensive equipment or a major project. It requires about twenty minutes before you walk out the door, aimed at the specific ways an empty house fails differently than an occupied one.
Why an empty house is a different risk
A leak in an occupied home gets noticed because someone hears water, sees a damp spot, or walks past a puddle. A leak in an empty home only gets noticed when someone checks, and during holiday travel, often nobody does — not a neighbor, not a house sitter, not anyone — for five, seven, sometimes ten days.
That gap matters more than the leak itself. A small drip that would get fixed in an afternoon at home can run continuously for a week while you're gone, and the damage scales with time, not with the size of the original problem.
Before you leave: the walkthrough
Set the thermostat to a steady, moderate temperature — not off, and not drastically lowered. Turning the heat off to save money while traveling is one of the more expensive ways to save a small amount of it. A consistently low but steady temperature, generally no lower than the mid-50s, keeps interior pipes from dropping to freezing range during a cold stretch outside.
Check supply hoses on the washing machine, dishwasher, and refrigerator icemaker. These are common failure points even on a normal day, and a failure while you're gone means the leak runs until you're back. If a hose looks cracked, bulging, or more than a few years old, replace it before you travel rather than after.
Know where your main shutoff valve is — and make sure whoever's checking on the house does too. This is the single most useful thing you can do before any trip, holiday or otherwise. If you haven't mapped yours yet, our guide on finding your water shutoff valve walks through where to look and how to label it clearly. A house sitter or neighbor who can shut off the water the moment they notice a problem can be the difference between a minor repair and a major claim.
Consider shutting off the main water supply entirely if no one will be checking on the house. If you're not using a house sitter and nobody will be inside during the trip, shutting off the main valve before you leave removes the risk of a supply-line failure entirely. This isn't practical for every trip — it means no water for anyone stopping by to water plants or check mail — but for an empty house over a long holiday stretch, it's the most reliable prevention available.
If you do shut off the main valve, drain the lines and consider leaving the water heater on a lower setting. Turning off the supply without draining the lines still leaves standing water in pipes that could freeze during a hard cold snap. If you're shutting off water for an extended trip during a cold period, draining the system removes that risk too.
Disconnect and drain any garden hoses, and make sure outdoor faucets are protected. This matters for any winter stretch, but it's easy to forget in the rush of holiday packing. An unprotected hose bib can freeze and crack even during a short cold snap, and a crack that happens while you're traveling won't be found until you're back.
Ask someone to physically check the house, not just collect mail. A mail hold or a package pickup doesn't tell you anything about what's happening inside. If you have a neighbor, friend, or house sitter checking in, ask them specifically to look under sinks, near the water heater, and in the laundry area — the same spots worth checking on any normal day, just done on your behalf.
If you're using a smart leak detector or shutoff system
If your home already has a water sensor or an automatic shutoff system installed, holiday travel is exactly the scenario these devices are built for — detection and response matter most precisely when no one's home to notice a leak the ordinary way. Make sure the app is still connected, notifications are turned on, and someone (you or whoever's checking the house) will actually see an alert if one comes in. A sensor that's installed but unmonitored during the one week it matters most isn't protecting anything.
What to do if you get the call
If a house sitter, neighbor, or notification tells you there's water where there shouldn't be, the first priority is getting the water shut off — by whoever's on site, immediately, without waiting for you to get home. Our guide on what to do in the first hour of a water leak covers the order of operations in detail, and it's worth sharing with whoever is checking on your house before you leave, not after something's already gone wrong.
If you come home to water damage
A pipe that's been running for days by the time anyone finds it is a different repair than one caught in the first hour. Our water damage restoration team handles mitigation and structural drying for exactly this kind of delayed discovery, and our plumbing team can repair the failure itself — often in the same visit. If you want your home checked for freeze and leak risk before a holiday trip, or you're dealing with damage from one already, call (425) 999-1091 or get in touch.