Home maintenance in Texas
Updated August 2026
Three forces set the Texas list: months of extreme heat, expansive clay soil, and the hard freeze nobody plans for. Heat is the constant, clay is the expensive one, and the freeze is the one that puts water in the living room. Everything else layers on top: hail in the north, hurricanes on the coast, hard water nearly everywhere. The state is big enough that a Houston list and an El Paso list share maybe half their rows.
Covers: Texas, Houston and the Gulf coastal plain, Dallas-Fort Worth and North Texas, Hill Country and Central Texas, West Texas.
The climate here
East Texas is humid subtropical and West Texas is semi-arid, but the shared feature sits underfoot: expansive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Large parts of the state see 90 or more days above 90°F, so a condenser here logs more run hours in one summer than a northern unit does in three. Then the pattern breaks. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 held much of the state below freezing for days and split pipes in houses that had never needed insulation. Water is hard almost statewide, which shortens water-heater life and coats every fixture.
What the climate does to your house
| Risk | What it does to your house |
|---|---|
| Long extreme heat | A condenser running May through October ages quickly. Capacitors fail in July, coils foul with dust and cottonwood, and an undersized or dirty system runs continuously without ever reaching setpoint on a 105°F afternoon. |
| Expansive clay under the slab | Clay shrinks in drought and swells after rain, and the slab rides along. You get doors that stick, brick cracks stair-stepping above windows, and repair bills of $5,000–15,000 and up once piers enter the conversation. |
| Sudden hard freezes | A house built for heat has thin pipe insulation, hose bibs on uninsulated walls, and supply lines run through the attic. Two days below freezing splits them, and the burst usually announces itself through the ceiling the moment the thaw starts. |
| Hail in North Texas | The DFW corridor sits in one of the busiest hail belts in the country. Golf-ball stones bruise shingles without visibly destroying them, so the damage often surfaces as a leak two years later, after the claim window has closed. |
| Gulf storms on the coast | From Corpus Christi to Beaumont the June-to-November season brings the same wind and surge exposure as the rest of the Gulf. Roof edges, garage doors, and soffits are where those houses give way first. |
| Hard water | Scale builds in the water heater, the dishwasher, and every aerator. Sediment on the tank floor insulates the burner from the water above it, which wastes gas and can take years off the tank. |
How the calendar shifts here
Texas runs a heat calendar with a freeze policy stapled to it. Book the cooling service in February or March, before the first 95°F week, because a mid-July call books out for days and costs more. From June through September, if the ground has pulled away from the slab, run a soaker hose 12 to 18 inches out from the foundation for 20 to 30 minutes a few evenings a week to hold the clay at even moisture. In November, do the freeze list even though it feels unnecessary: insulate hose bibs and attic pipe, label the main shutoff, and learn which faucets to drip. Inspect the roof after every serious hail event rather than on a fixed date. The cost calculator is a useful reality check before you defer any of it.
| Task | Interval | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Service the AC and wash the condenser coil | Yearly | $120–250 pro |
| Change filters and set a summer interval | Every 30–60 days | 5 min · DIY |
| Check attic insulation depth and venting | Every few years | 1 hr · DIY |
| Task | Interval | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Soaker-hose the foundation on dry weeks | 2–3 evenings a week | 10 min · DIY |
| Walk the slab for new cracks and sticking doors | Monthly | 10 min · DIY |
| Inspect the roof after each hail or wind storm | After storms | 30 min · DIY |
| Task | Interval | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Insulate hose bibs and exposed attic pipe | Yearly | $30–80 materials · DIY |
| Locate, label, and test the main shutoff | Once, verify yearly | 20 min · DIY |
| Flush sediment from the water heater | Every 6 months | 45 min · DIY |
This whole checklist ships as reminders in OnOtto: every task above, on the right schedule for your home, snooze-proof.
Load this checklist as remindersFrequently asked questions
Should I water my foundation in Texas, and how much?
Yes during summer drought, and evenly is the operative word. Lay a soaker hose 12 to 18 inches out from the slab edge, all the way around, and run it 20 to 30 minutes in the evening two or three times a week once the soil starts pulling away. The goal is steady moisture, not saturation. A soaked corner beside a bone-dry side stresses the slab more than a uniformly dry yard does.
When should I service my AC in Texas?
February or March. Booking before the first 95°F stretch gets you an off-peak appointment, a technician with time to look properly, and a chance to swap a weak capacitor before it strands you. A spring tune-up runs about $120–250. The same visit in mid-July as an emergency commonly costs two to three times that, assuming a company can reach you inside a week.
How do I keep pipes from freezing in a Texas cold snap?
Do the work in November, not the night the alert lands. Cover every hose bib with a foam cap, sleeve any supply line running through the attic or an exterior wall, and confirm the main shutoff turns. During the freeze itself, open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls and let one faucet at the far end of the run drip steadily. Uri burst pipes in tens of thousands of Texas homes that had none of this in place.
How can I tell if hail damaged my roof?
Look for bruises, not holes. Chalk-marked test squares on the slope, granules piling at the downspout outlet, and dents in soft metals such as gutter aprons, vents, and condenser fins are the reliable tells, and the fins you can check from the ground. Most carriers want a claim inside a year of the storm date, so arrange an inspection after any event with stones over roughly an inch.