Point is you CAN start and get the ball rolling...here's some idea..Lady i pay who put out signs(i don't do this method anymore) $175-300 for like 50-75 signs she supplied them, wrote them, put them out and took pictures of every one.200-400 letters, stamps are like 50 cents, so that's what, $200Paper, envelopes(i like the colored ones)Bought my daughter some "Frozen" toys to help me put on stamps...$15That's it dude...i mean you can do SEO website stuff too, or pay one of the guys on BP who have postcard services to do it for you, as it gets old QUICK.I now pay a lady from oDesk $4/hr to do my research for my list and mail merge list to Word, so all i gotta do is print, sign, stuff and mail.if you do those #$@&** yellow letters by hand you will hate life.

Your profit potential, THEIR balance, was frozen at purchase and will only decrease in the meantime.

I buy a lot of foreclosures here in Upstate NY, meaning all of those lines that are buried in concrete have frozen and burst. 

in general if the gas co says they need to run new lines the first 60 feet is free and usually so muchh per foot there after if the ground is not frozen

And in this part of the country you are vulnerable to frozen pipes by allowing too much air to circulated underneath. 

It also has the benefit of alerting me if it detects a water leak which could be a life saver if say a frozen water line breaks in the middle of the night.

my concern is pipes might get frozen while the heat would be turned off for a couple years?

If the floor drain is backing up, you have a blockage in the line somewhere which could be anything from a toy that is stuck to tree roots to a frozen valve.

It was frozen to the cement so I couldn't lift it to look underneath...

In my leases there is no rent escalation, so one reason the tenants like the longer terms is that the rent is frozen for 1 to 3 years.