That evening I received numerous text messages, with a report of the temperature every hour. 

The concern lies that your tenants can still increase/decrease the temperature at will.

However, a little over a month ago the air conditioner which was only 2 years old had failed during a week of high temperatures.

Being a part-time investor, I don't feel I could manage Class D neighborhood properties yet (which is where all the good deals are, of course), so I'm trying to check the market temperature in the Baytown/LaPorte/Mont Belvieu area instead.

I have always worked in blue collar type jobs welding, fabricating, engine building, etc. but have never done anything extensive as far as contracting outside of helping my dad remodel kitchen/bathroom as a kid and helping him with various plumbing jobs. 

Boulder county has had far less fracking than Weld county historically (Erie spans both counties), so you might look as far into Boulder County as possible but the future is uncertain because the moratorium was recently lifted in Boulder County. 2 people were killed last year in nearby Firestone when a new house exploded because it was built close to an improperly capped flow line, and these flow lines are not mapped, so it’s definitely an issue to be concerned with. http://www.timescall.com/carbon-valley-news/ci_30959619/firestone-explosion-started-by-gas-from-cut-flow

The last 13 years I've worked in the maintenance welding industry, selling on commission & traveling (too much) throughout western Colorado, eastern Utah & New Mexico.

I hadn't seen any coming and going of traffic (although the neighbor said she had) and the tenant certainly didn't look or act like the typical drug dealer.Yesterday, when the temperature warmed up, I stopped by the apartment building to shovel the ice, since there would be a narrow window of above-freezing temperatures.

This allows the us to optimize solar heat gain, R-value, and visible light to leverage the benefits of the sun in winter, but avoid overheating in summer and to mitigate temperature fluctuation in the living space as a consequence of time of day or season. 

Even if I would've fixed the sump pump issue, the pipe burst would've still happened given the crazy temperatures in NJ this winter.