Brazos County, Texas · Bryan
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With 7% of homes built before 1960 and about 1 hard-freeze night a year, frozen and split pipes are a leading winter risk in the county.
Basements flood here mostly in May. Brazos County averages 11.6 days a year with an inch of rain or more.
Sewage backups in Brazos County spike on heavy-rain days, about 11.6 a year, when sewer mains fill up and water finds the lowest drain.
Brazos County's wettest day in the 2015–2024 record brought 7.17 inches.
3% of occupied homes in Brazos County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Texas county median of 6.5%.
With 156 muggy nights a year, mold in Brazos County can appear within days of a leak. Dry first, then clean.
Local risk profile
With 100,826 homes and around 242,311 residents, Brazos County is 586 square miles of eastern Texas. The county seat is Bryan, and College Station, Lake Bryan and Kurten round out the largest towns. Much of its housing is recent, with a median build year of 1997.
37/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Moderate Brazos County ranks 204 of 232 Texas counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Brazos County ranks highest compared with other Texas counties.
Brazos County is milder than most of Texas, but not mild enough to skip winterizing. It averaged 15 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 1 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 232 Texas counties that's 159th.
On February 16, 2021 the low fell to about 5°F, and in the stretch ending February 2021 the county went 4 days in a row below freezing. Leaks from split pipes typically appear the day the thaw arrives.
With only about 15 freezing nights a year, many homes here aren't built for cold, so a single arctic outbreak can burst pipes across the county. The record low in this data was about 5°F, on February 16, 2021.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Texas. Of roughly 44.5 inches of yearly precipitation, the damage comes from the 11.6 days a year with an inch or more, ranked 73rd of 232. April, May and December see the most. The single wettest day in the record: 7.17 inches, August 27, 2017. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 14.33 inches (through August 28, 2017).
Housing
Roughly 23% of the county's housing was built before 1980. That puts Brazos among the newer housing stocks of Texas's 232 counties.
46% of homes were built in 2000 or later, more than in most of Texas. Newer plumbing rarely corrodes, so damage here tends to come from appliance supply lines, water heaters, sump pumps and storms.
31% date from 1980 to 1999, the window when polybutylene, a gray flexible plastic supply pipe, was used in some homes. It's prone to leaks at the fittings, so it's worth checking for in a house from those years.
Renters occupy 53% of homes. If you rent, the building is usually the landlord's to repair, but your belongings are only covered by renters insurance.
Beyond water
Brazos County averages 156 warm, muggy nights a year (lows of 65°F or more) and gets the most rain in May. Keep indoor humidity under 60%, as the EPA advises, and dry any leak within 24 to 48 hours; in a humid month a wet basement left alone won't dry by itself.
Mold remediation: what to expectMain heating fuel in Brazos County's occupied homes: 33% utility gas, 64% electric, 3% propane and under 1% wood. Most homes here heat with gas or electricity, so cooking and electrical faults are the likelier fire sources. Even a contained kitchen fire can send soot through the ductwork to every room.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Brazos County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Robertson gets more pipe-freeze nights than Brazos. Robertson County has the oldest housing nearby, with 45% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Brazos | Texas median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 6.6% | 20% | 213 of 232 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 23% | 46% | 210 of 232 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 46% | 26% | 24 of 232 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 5.9% | 13% | 199 of 232 |
| Vacant homes | 9.7% | 17% | 195 of 232 |
| Wood or propane heat | 3% | 6.5% | 189 of 232 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 1/yr | 3/yr | 159 of 232 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 12/yr | 7.8/yr | 73 of 232 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 14/yr | 27/yr | 168 of 232 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 156/yr | 129/yr | 59 of 232 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Texas county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Brazos County: freezing from midwinter, heavy rain in April, May and December.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology