Grumpy, are you staying warm?

[Grumpy Goat]

Is that because of the exposed water line outside of the house?
How cold did it get inside the house?

Not really, and there is no more any exposed water line outside the house since the plumber covered it for nearly $480!

I took that step largely because I wanted to test out the new (to me) strategy, especially when they were asking that we not drip our pipes due to the low water pressure. Our subdivision never saw low pressure but I still tried out the shut off / drain pipes approach. I can also tell you it is much more peace of mind with the water shut off and the pipes empty and the faucets wide open to not have a closed system.

The house probably didn't get very cold since it is on a programmable thermostat where while we are sleeping I have it programmed to go down to 65 deg.F (I think) between 11 PM and 5 AM after which it rises to the normal 68 deg.F. In summer it is 75 deg.F during the day and 78 deg.F during those same overnight period. The thermostat also automatically controls both the AC and the furnace, so I pretty much no longer know how it works ... it just does its thing for years.

The one day (Wednesday) when we had no power during the day for 11 hours it got as low as 53 deg.F but it was not nearly as bad as some of the other people we see on TV. There was and continues to be a lot of suffering in Texas. The most vulnerable continue to fare the worst.