After a freeze: appliance checklist
| Check | What can go wrong | Sign |
|---|---|---|
| Refrigerator water line | Supply line or inlet valve cracks | Water behind or under the fridge |
| Ice maker | Fill tube frozen | No ice, water dispenser dead |
| Washer hoses and valves | Frozen water split a hose | Leak the first time you run it |
| Freezer | Food thawed and refroze | Ice crystals inside packages, puddled ice |
| Garage refrigerator | Below its rated room temperature | Freezer section warms when the garage is cold |
Restarting safely
- Look for water under each appliance before turning the supply back on.
- Turn the water on slowly and watch hose connections for a few minutes.
- Run the washer empty on a short cycle before loading it.
- Put a thermometer in the fridge and freezer and check after 24 hours.
Generators and CO
Safety
Never run a generator, grill or camp stove indoors or in a garage. Carbon monoxide kills during almost every major outage. Never use a gas oven to heat the house.
Repair cost or replacement after storm damage
A cracked inlet valve or hose is a small repair. A freezer that no longer reaches 0 °F after an outage may have a sealed-system fault — get a diagnosis before deciding, and keep receipts in case your insurance covers food loss or water damage.
Summer is the other season
The long Central Texas summer is hard on refrigerators in garages and on dryers vented through long attic runs. A garage refrigerator that is working at the top of its rated room temperature can run all day and still lose ground; cleaning the condenser coils and giving it a few inches of airflow helps more than turning the dial colder.
Write down what happened during any outage — how long the power was off, whether water lines froze, and what temperatures you saw afterwards. That record helps a technician separate storm damage from wear, and it's what an insurer will ask for if you claim food loss or water damage.
Provider coverage in Austin
We're still verifying providers across Travis and Williamson counties. Call with your ZIP code to confirm.
Austin at a glance
- Main appliance stress
- Hard freezes with multi-day outages; summer heat
- Electric
- Austin Energy across much of the city
- Natural gas
- Texas Gas Service across much of the area
- After an outage
- Check temperatures and water lines before trusting appliances
Provider coverage in Austin
Participating providers: not yet. This page is local guidance — not a promise that a technician is available at every address.Common questions
My freezer is running again after the outage. Is the food safe?
Check whether it still has ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below; FoodSafety.gov says such food can be refrozen. If you don't know how warm it got, throw out perishables.
Should I drip faucets to protect appliance lines?
Dripping helps protect pipes; it doesn't protect a refrigerator line or washer hoses in an unheated garage or exterior wall. Shutting their supply valves during a hard freeze can.
More in Texas: Texas appliance repair help