Freeze watch: the week before the cold snap does the work

November is the cheap month for freeze prevention. The burst pipe in January was usually decided in November: the hose bib left connected, the vacant unit with the heat set by habit instead of by a number, the crawl-space vent open, the pipe run on an outside wall with no insulation and a history nobody wrote down. One afternoon of freeze prep per building — disconnect hoses, confirm vacant-unit heat settings in writing, insulate the known runs, and list the shut-off locations where the on-call tech can find them at 2 a.m. — is the whole program. What is on your freeze list, and which unit is your known cold spot? — Otto Mergl, Admin