How to restart a boiler with frozen pipes & radiators

Curse you #IceStorm2013, my hydronic heating system froze!

Are you like so many other Torontonians, having suffered an extended power outage this past week? Do you have frozen heating pipes and or radiators?

If so, you can damage your boiler if you try to restart the boiler while the system is frozen. This can cause thermal shock that may crack the heat-exchanger leading to a costly repair.

You need to know a safe manner in which to restart your boiler without damaging it and to avoid a lengthy and expensive repairs. If you book a service call to have a heating technician restart your system it will cost a fair bit as well, typically more than a couple hundred bucks.

The following, in simple layman's terms, are the steps to restart your system safely.  

DISCLAIMER:
Among my qualifications I am a gas fitter & HVAC designer so i know what i'm speaking about, but if you read beyond this point or use the following information you accept all liability for your actions, and you understand that you are using this information at your own risk. It is provided for entertainment purposes only.

Canada Post by the Numbers

Customer Base

Canada Post services approximately 15.3 million addresses, of which only 5 million receive door-to-door mail delivery. The balance of the 10.3 million addresses are served by a centralized point, with 3.9 million of those addresses having a neighbourhood community mailbox as their centralized point of delivery.

The number of delivery addresses has been increasing at an average of 169 thousand addresses per year over the past 5 years. At an average annual cost of 168 dollars per address, operating expenses related to new addresses are increasing by 28.4 million dollars per year.

Annual Profits and Revenues

Canada Post has annual profits of 118.2 million dollars (5 yr average) on an annual revenues of 7.5 billion dollars (5 yr average).

Source: Canada Post 2012 Annual Report

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers frequently cite an 18 year average annual profit of 139 million dollars both to provide an inflated view of Canada Post's 'current' viability and to imply that this level of profitability can continue. However, past profitability can never be used as an predictor of future profitability.

Total Mail Volume

Canada Post has a 5 year average Total Mail Volume of 10.8 billion pieces. Total Mail Volume is broken down by market segment:

• Direct Marketing - Addressed and unaddressed Admail,
• Transactional Mail - Lettermail, 
• Parcels.

Canada Post has a the following 2011 - 2012 two year average Mail volumes:

• Direct Marketing Volume of 5.1 billion pieces, 
• Transactional Mail volume of 4.5 billion pieces, 
• Parcel volume of 148 million pieces. 

My email to Councillor Ron Moeser

In response to the Toronto City Council meeting of November 18, 2013 

Ford's Intimidation Tactics and Violent Temperament

As citizens we have to stand up to the intimidation of our elected officials, even if it means being prepared to join in the rumble.

I came to Canada in the late 1960's, when my family chose to leave the political turmoil in the United States behind. A major part of the story of our family's arrival in Canada was the tale of how my 5'-0" mother was assaulted by a thug at a democratic rally, while she had 4 young children in tow.

For me the most disgraceful and unacceptable political sin is the use threats and intimidation as a political tool. Therefore, as you may imagine, the sight of Rob Ford, the Chief Magistrate of Toronto, threatening Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong on the floor of the Council Chamber not more than 25 feet away raised my ire to say the least.

Pro-Rob Ford Billboard, Interesting For So Much More...

Pro-Rob Ford Billboard, Interesting For So Much More Than The Hilarious Typo!

Sometime during the afternoon of Friday, November 8th, 2013 the following billboard inexplicably appeared to perplexed motorists in Toronto’s west end, near the Gardener & Islington.

On Twitter some users chose to poke fun at Ford Nation’s lack of spell checking, while others challenged what they “alleged” was not an authentic bible verse (that’s you @danspeerin). Other commentators poked fun at Mayor Ford, parroting his own words back at him saying “I can’t comment on a sign I haven’t seen or that doesn't exist.”

As Friday night progressed the story began to get really interesting, with possible motive beginning to unfold in a troubling narrative of a mutually beneficial relationship and a possible cover-up of the full extent of Rob Ford's relationship with the billboard owners.

Certainly the narrative began to sound more sinister than the unauthorized use of the City of Toronto logo which @judemacdonald had noted early in the evening. Not content to leave it at that, the hunt for facts continued as @judemacdonald, asked “who produced the sign? Who paid for the sign? Which company rents out billboard space? How do we find out?”