Greenville homes work harder between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than at any other time of year. More cooking, more guests, and more lights all at once strain plumbing and electrical systems that run quietly the rest of the year. The Upstate’s first freezes tend to land in the same weeks. Because Carolina Heating Service handles both trades, this checklist is split the way our crews are. There is a short list for the plumber, a short list for the electrician, and one item both care about, which is what happens if a winter storm takes the power. None of it needs a professional, though a professional will catch what you cannot see.
The plumber’s list
In the kitchen
Holiday cooking uses the disposal, the dishwasher, and the kitchen sink more in a week than they see in a normal month, and grease is the biggest cause of clogged drains this time of year. Fat from turkey drippings and gravy goes down as a liquid and hardens as it cools in the pipe, catching food scraps and narrowing the line until water can barely pass. Let grease cool in a container and put it in the trash, keep potato peels, onion skins, celery, pasta, and bones out of the disposal, and run cold water through the disposal for a few seconds after each use. A drain that is already slow will not improve under a week of holiday dishes, so have it cleared before the first big dinner rather than after. Our drain clearing visits are short ones.
Bathrooms and hot water
A houseful of guests means more showers, more dishes, and more laundry, often within the same few hours. If the water heater struggles to keep up on an ordinary week, it will struggle more with a full house. Our water heater team can flush a tank heater or check a tankless unit’s performance before the holidays, and it is worth knowing where the heater’s shutoff valve is in case a fitting fails while the house is full. Give each guest bathroom’s toilet a look too, since one that needs a second flush or runs on its own is easier to fix now than mid-visit, and put a covered trash can in every bathroom so guests are not tempted to flush wipes.
Before the cold
The Upstate does not get bitter cold for long, but a hard freeze most winters is enough to split an exposed pipe or crack a spigot that was not drained. Disconnect the garden hoses, cover the outdoor spigots, and wrap any pipe running through an unheated crawl space or garage. If something does freeze and split while family is in town, our frozen and burst pipe repair team can get it handled without turning the holiday into a plumbing emergency.
The electrician’s list
Holiday lighting
Outdoor lights, inflatables, and extra kitchen appliances all draw from circuits that were never built to run everything at once. Plug string lights into outdoor GFCI outlets, the ones with the test and reset buttons that cut power fast if moisture gets into the circuit, rather than chaining extension cords together or running a cord from an indoor outlet through a window. An outdoor-rated cord for one string of lights is fine; several cords chained from one circuit is where the trouble starts. Stay within the number of strings the packaging allows, and put the lights on a timer so a string is not running unattended all night.
Guests and their heaters
Give guests’ phone chargers and any space heater their own outlet rather than a crowded power strip, and keep space heaters three feet from bedding and curtains and never on an extension cord. In the kitchen, spread the slow cooker, the second oven, and the coffee maker across circuits, since one countertop circuit carrying all three trips on Thanksgiving morning.
At the panel
A breaker that trips once on a stormy night is not unusual, but a breaker that trips more than once when the lights come on, outlets that feel warm to the touch, or lights that dim when an appliance starts are signs a circuit is carrying more than it should. Rather than guess, an electrician can measure what the panel is handling. Our electricians can add outdoor outlets, check panel capacity, or install whole-home surge protection if the decorations and the guests are pulling more than the house was wired for, and many older Greenville homes are running on panels sized for a smaller life.
What both lists share: the power
Winter storms knock out power somewhere in the Upstate most years, and Helene in 2024 showed how long an outage here can last. If it happens mid-holiday, a whole-home generator keeps the refrigerator, the water heater, the heat, and the lights running, and because Carolina Heating Service installs and services home generators, the plumber and the electrician both have a stake in it. If you already have one, listen for its weekly self-test and book its yearly service before the holidays rather than after. If you rely on a portable generator, run it only outdoors and far from every window and door, and never plug it into a wall outlet, since that sends power back into the lines where crews are working.
Scheduling a pre-holiday check
Most of this checklist takes an afternoon of walking through the house, and a plumber or electrician will catch what you would miss: a water heater a year from failing or a panel closer to its limit than it looks. Carolina Heating Service has served Greenville and the surrounding Upstate, including Spartanburg, Anderson, and Pickens counties, since 1981, with plumbing, electrical, and generator teams that can handle the whole list in one visit. One call, and we will handle it all. Schedule online or through the 24/7 website chat before the season gets busy, and members of the Carolina Comfort Club receive priority service when it does.