> Do you live somewhere that almost never drops below freezing?

Grew up in a place that reaches -25c pretty often and never heard of that. It's in europe though so we probably have better insulation. I could leave my house 3 days and no pipe would burst, I've never heard of anyone having burst pipes now that I think about it. When I went to school and my parents were at work we'd shut down the heating completely, we were pretty poor so there is that, but I don't remember being cold

When I was in california we'd have to run heating full blast 24/7 to maintain 16c indoor so that my explain a few things