Pulaski County, Virginia · Pulaski
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Pulaski, Dublin and Fairlawn. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
Pipes freeze in Pulaski County on about 22 nights a year, mostly November to March. Older homes, 27% of the stock here, are most at risk.
May brings the most downpours to Pulaski County, part of 7.8 heavy-rain days a year. Check the sump first.
Sewage backups in Pulaski County spike on heavy-rain days, about 7.8 a year, when sewer mains fill up and water finds the lowest drain.
Pulaski County's wettest day in the 2015–2024 record brought 2.66 inches, and about 91 freeze-thaw days a year mean ice dams in some winters.
8% of occupied homes in Pulaski County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Virginia county median of 11.9%.
With 12 muggy nights a year, mold in Pulaski County can appear within days of a leak. Dry first, then clean.
Local risk profile
About 33,687 people live in Pulaski County, 320 square miles in southwest Virginia, in roughly 17,056 homes. The county seat is Pulaski, and Dublin, Fairlawn and Parrott round out the largest towns. The county's median home was built in 1975.
53/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Elevated Pulaski County ranks 41 of 95 Virginia counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Pulaski County ranks highest compared with other Virginia counties.
Pulaski is on the colder side of Virginia for pipes. In the 2015–2024 record the county logged about 22 nights a year at or below 20°F (16th of 95) and 99 below freezing. Twenty degrees is roughly where uninsulated pipes start to freeze.
The longest cold spell was straight 8 days without the temperature rising above freezing, ending in January 2018. The coldest night reached about -4°F on February 21, 2015. Burst pipes usually show up when a spell like that breaks and the ice thaws.
Expect the hardest freezes in January, inside a season that runs November to March. That's when an outdoor spigot left connected to a hose, or a pipe in a crawl space, is most likely to split.
On average the first fall freeze arrives around Oct 24 and the last spring freeze around Apr 20.
Pulaski gets fewer downpours than most Virginia counties, but they still fill basements. About 7.8 days a year bring an inch or more (82nd of 95), most often in May, out of 45.4 inches of total precipitation. On October 24, 2017, 2.66 inches fell in a single day. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 4.55 inches (through September 28, 2024).
Freeze-thaw days, below freezing overnight and above it by afternoon, come about 91 times a year here. They're the main driver of ice dams and of water working its way through foundation cracks in late winter.
Housing
60% of homes in Pulaski County predate 1980, above the Virginia county median of 46.2%, which ranks 6th of Virginia's 95 counties.
In Pulaski County 27% of homes are older than 1960. If yours is one of them and the plumbing has never been replaced, expect galvanized steel supply pipe and cast iron drain lines, the two materials most likely to fail quietly.
25% 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.
Here 13% of housing is manufactured homes. Check the skirting and the heat tape on the main water line every fall, because that one exposed line is what freezes.
Beyond water
Summer nights that don't drop below 65°F, a good marker of humid air, come about 12 times a year here, below the Virginia county median of 64. The EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60%, ideally 30 to 50%. Basements can pass 60% on their own in summer, so a dehumidifier matters even without a leak, and anything wet should be dried within 24 to 48 hours.
Mold remediation: what to expectHeating fuel matters for fire risk. In Pulaski County it's 12% utility gas, 73% electric, 4% propane and 4% wood. Heating equipment, cooking and electrical failures cause most home fires nationally. Even a small kitchen fire can leave soot through the whole house, because smoke follows air currents into closets, ducts and attic space.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Pulaski County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Bland, Floyd, Giles and Wythe get more pipe-freeze nights than Pulaski. Giles County has the oldest housing nearby, with 61% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Pulaski | Virginia median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 27% | 20% | 20 of 95 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 60% | 46% | 6 of 95 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 15% | 25% | 90 of 95 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 13% | 9.6% | 41 of 95 |
| Vacant homes | 15% | 15% | 47 of 95 |
| Wood or propane heat | 7.7% | 12% | 74 of 95 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 22/yr | 14/yr | 16 of 95 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 7.8/yr | 10/yr | 82 of 95 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 91/yr | 77/yr | 12 of 95 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 12/yr | 64/yr | 86 of 95 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Virginia county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Pulaski County: freezing from November to March, heavy rain in April, May and October.
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