HOW WOULD U LIKE TO ARRIVE HOME TO THIS

DOES THIS REALLY HAPPEN?

Seen this one before. The explanation was a broken water supply pipe. Good reason to turn the water off when you go away. Looks real enough to me . . .

Seen it in real life just across the street. Water pipe burst and contents of garage looked like that. We eventually noticed something was wrong when water appeared on the road in front of the house and we noticed it was coming out from around the front door and cascading down the steps.

And that was not the worst of it. We're on metered water, usual usage will easily cost $100 a month but once we left for two weeks and the toilet was running on....bill of over $350 that month. The poor smucks whose house I describe above had a HUGE bill and the City made them pay it all.

Damn Brian, seems like everything is expensive up there. My water is about $200 a year all you can use!

Isn't your water from Great Slave lake?

Yup, it really happens. Here's my son's Mitsubishi Eclipse, in his garage, encapsulated in ice:

http://www.theta.net/nichols/wintersux/icygsx.jpg

He eventually got it thawed out and it started right up. Took a couple of days with space heaters running to thaw it.

The temps had been below zero for a few days and they were away. A pipe burst in the room above the garage and that was all she wrote.

Ice was about 6" thick running down the driveway and into the street.

When I built my house here I made sure there were no water pipes in outside walls, floors or ceilings. Everything is either on the warm side of an exterior wall or inside an interior wall. Only way to do it IMO.

Yes, Great Salve Lake supplies the water and its frozen over with about 2-3 feet of ice right now. Don't know why water costs so much but I do know that the City has to heat, and keep warm, the water and all the mains all winter and well into the summer. (I've dug down 2 feet into the ground in July and hit ice) Luckily I'm on the mains as there are a lot of people here who get water delivery and sewer pump out and its a lot more $ for that.

BRIAN U NEED TO MOVE

Dad was a plumber, and I worked for him. This happens more than you would think. Split level house, bathroom over the garage, somebody leaves the door up in January. Nothing about $10K won't take case of.

I got caught in an ice storm in Detroit many years ago. Came out of work to find my "new" used Corvette covered with a solid inch of ice. Not even possible to get at the key slot. Only "ice pick" I had was my car keys. It took maybe fifteen minutes to get the key slot open. After finally unlocking the car, I STILL couldn't open the door itself due to ice. Another fifteen minutes of pounding and digging finally got the door open. Much later, when I finally drove out of the parking lot, I had one 8 inch diameter hole thru the ice on the drivers side windshield. Luckily not much traffic for the first few miles. And that is reason number 14 why I live in San Diego!

David, my story is almost identical except for the make of car.The junk weather and depressed economy were the # 1 and #2 reasons I moved from Detroit to Maui in '79 . One time -IN MID APRIL of '79 !!- there was a 10" snowstorm. I was so pissed off at the late "present", I stubornly got in the car with about a 6" clearing on the windshield to see out. When the snow didn't melt quick enough I pounded on the windshield from the inside to loosen the snow. That little maneuver cracked the windshield from one end to the other! Wasn't my day, but it WAS the day I said I was moving to Maui.

Check out some of these...a couple of aircooled in there, if only the key would work...

http://www.gadgetcrunch.net/2007/01/14/ice-storm-photos/

I'm thinking that Mike (and Brian) probable dig out those ice-storm stories and photos in a desperate attempt to convince themselves that someone else is perhaps even worse off than they are!

Not likely...its beautiful here lately. We never have extreme weather here. In the winter we know it'll be cold and snow, the only unexpected is warm and sunshine which we have again today. Minus 2 now, not a cloud in the sky and a stiff breeze out of the south. I'll be out on the lake kite skiing most of the afternoon with a 6 pack and som,e munchies. Life doesn't get much better.

Rain? The last time we had rain was probably 6 months ago or more.

Pics from this afternoon's kite skiing session. Just over 20 miles in total, average speed of 18 mph, max 28 mph...what a beautiful day!!