-=> Quoting Gord Hannah to Jim Weller <=-

 GH> We have the same here in the south north, we had one unit of the few
 GH> that I manage have a frozen water line, the contractor put the line
 GH> against the outside wall with no insulation between the pipe and the
 GH> wall. Can't understand how that one passed inspection, that is not even
 GH> up to code.

I've come across that myself but usually as a result of a home
handyman retrofit. Most contractors have more common sense.

During the last really severe bout of cold 12 years ago we had a
whole street freeze up. It turned out that the sewer and water
contractor uncovered a rock ledge about 12 feet down and went over
it not through it with some blasting. The engineer had called for
15 feet in his design. It lasted from 1967 when built to 1996 when
we had the cold snap but it never should have happened.

 GH> We have a couple of people that are transplanted here from the south,
 GH> Oliver area, and one from Mexico, and what an introduction to the area
 GH> for them, kinda got to feel sorry for them.

We've got recent Middle Eastern immigrants trying to acclimatize. At
least they typically had one winter or more in Toronto before coming
here to break in gradually. The South African and Australian mine
executives came here straight from home; they are suffering more.
Imagine going from +44 to -44 in 48 hours.

It gets worse. The forecast for the next two nights is now -48 C
(-54.5 F). That will be the second coldest temp I've seen in 26
years living here.

We had another power outage but this time it only lasted 20 minutes.
The transformer oil is freezing in the transformers at the
sub-station. 

To date all my family's furnaces and vehicles are running. I am the
only one without water; the steam truck operator is now predicting
Saturday not tonight for his ETA. Every job he is on takes a little
longer than planned. So we continue to fill water jugs for drinking
and melt snow for flushing. We're doing OK; we haven't run out
of clean dishes or socks yet.

BTW snow crunches underfoot at -30 but squeaks at -40. You can tell
how cold it is by the sound your boots make.

Another quirky note: the eastern arctic is enjoying a warm spell
simultaneously; it is only -15 C (+5 F) at Alert, just 500 miles
from the north pole!




Cheers

YK Jim


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