Family returns from vacation to find home flooded, frozen

Good advice. My buddy was out of the country visiting family and called me at 11 one night frantic. He has a Nest thermostat that was showing 42 degrees and the outside temp was in the single digits. He was mainly worried about his birds.

I went over and got the heat working again, but that could have been catastrophic if it had deeply frozen. I laughed at him when he bought the $300 thermostat... but that was cheap prevention for what could have happened!!!