Power went off

I suspect that those homes with the higher usage had electric heating. "Gold Medallion" all-electric homes was a craze in So. Calif too and I encountered that a lot when I was house hunting. In some places, the heating wires were built into the ceiling drywall, which seems very inefficient to me. I held out for a gas furnace instead.As for water shut-off, there's usually an emergency water main valve on the outside where it comes into the house. Unable to find that, you can go the water meter which is in a box at the curb and shut it off there. Then turn on the taps and hose bibs to let the water drain out of the pipes. Be sure to shut off your water heater while you're at it (ie, just plain turn it off while leaving the valves on the tank alone).

I do have a water cutoff at the house as well as at the meter, but I can't drain the pipes, just de-pressure them. Even with the taps open the pipes will all still be full of water. Up North with basements it was possible to drain the pipes pretty easily.

I'm curious how this shutoff works since none of the water pipe can be above ground else it would be vulnerable to freezing. Or do they maybe use a flexible kind of pipe that can handle water expansion?Here in the northeast all outside water pipe is buried at the frost line and runs straight through the foundation. The pipe from our well comes into the basement about five feet below ground level.Most houses in the northeast have basements. We do know that some houses here get built on slabs, but I'm not sure how they handle the water pipes to the outside. My guess is that piping to the outside is put down before they pour the slab.We like to walk through houses under construction, and lately they've been using flexible plastic tubing instead of copper pipe. Looking this up I see the plastic piping is called PEX and that it is freeze resistant but not freeze proof.--Percy

Yep, the put in all the piping and drains in, usually the pipes sticking about three feet above where the top of the slab will be and then they pour the concrete. My shutoff valve is located under a plastic cover and is only six inches down in the dirt. So the pipe is actually exposed to air but is covered. My water meter is the same deal exposed except for a cover and only inches deep. Since we don't normally freeze there is no "frost line" depth to consider. I remember my house growing up in Rochester, NY had the plumbing coming in six feet deep into the side of the basement.

I think the more convincing group of economists demonstrate that protectionism enriches a select few, at the expense of the many.You also brought conservative verses liberal into the argument, and the comments ignored the fact that conservatives are now the more protectionist group, based on opinion polls, while liberals are the free traders now.But, the President that signed the most free trade deals, G W Bush, said this: Now, Bush was a protectionist . He beat Gore in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas due to his promise to block steel imports. He kept his promise and caused 250,000 Ametican jobs to be lost, due to the need for cheaper steel.(I showed, in a post years ago, that Trump caused a safe making company, in Illinois , to close, due to the same protectionism.)You made this trade issue, into an issue of conservatives supporting unregulated trade, verses liberals favoring regulations as aginst trade. You talked about liberal ( as in socialist) economic policies being blamed for job flight. I feel like your nation to nation trade context, was actually out of the general context of the conservative argument.The context actually is:Competition for jobs between states.And both liberals and conservatives know that blocking free trade, in that context, would be economically ruinous.Regulations can be argued for to keep jobs in every town, in every state. Nobody makes such arguments.(But there are a lot of subsidies, which is a form of protectionism, and if benefits A FEW rich and powerful interests, while not helping the many at all. It is simply job poaching for jobs that will already exist, somewhere)Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

Around here, the city parks have sprinklers with underground piping only a foot or so below the ground. In fall, they blow them out with compressed air.