What is the deal with turning your water on?

[mikeb]

I always understood the ones that go through brick work are "frost-free" and not suseptible to to freezing since the actual valve is deep inside the insulated walls.

Not necessarily. I have one of those style faucets on the back porch, which faces north and gets the north wind. Even with the faucet covered with a styrofoam cover, i've had it freeze back into the wall far enough to freeze up the pipe that connects to it, which also feeds a toilet. Toilet wouldn't flush, so out came the hair dryer and after about 20 mins of blowing up into the wall i got the water flowing again.

Now the wife has instructions to flush that toilet periodically when it's this cold.