Early Tuesday morning the northern part of the country experienced a super cold snap. Reports said temperatures slid down to well under minus-twenty-five degrees in some parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas. In short, it’s not a fun time up there.

This plumber with his heavy-duty IceBreaker appeared in a Chicago newscast, reminding folks to keep the water flowing from both hot and cold sources unless you’d like a visit from him to thaw and fix the pipes.  It sounds like good advice to us. Down here in the south, where we don’t have insulated pipes, we do this whenever the temperature dips under the freeze mark.

News Report [CBS 2 Chicago]

Deep in the throes of winter, this interesting little scraper caught our eye. Normally your windshield scraper only scrapes in one direction, but this orbital ice scraper from Carrand — think Mr. Clean — lets you maximize your efforts by scraping in any direction.  Any tool that gets you out of the cold faster and into your warming car is worth a look.

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Many of the project sites we look at take a Julia Childs approach to their holiday wood projects — you know, using materials you don’t have, tools you can’t afford, and plans you couldn’t draw up even if you were a rocket scientist. So to combat this effect we put together a reindeer and accompanying sleigh that you can assemble with a few simple tools and under $15 worth of lumber — in under a day.

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Hanging Christmas lights each year can be both a chore and a danger — the less time you spend up on that ladder the better.  The Fast Trax track light system makes it easier to put up your Christmas lights and get them straight the first time.  When the holiday season ends, Fast Trax also stores your lights tangle-free.

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If the Polar Express ever got stuck, they’d have to send this rig to go get it.  There’s just something cool about a snowblower hooked up to a train that makes me want to live further north.

Then again, this choo-choo isn’t for show.  It’s a hardworking train with some serious work ahead of it, and I’m a big sissy when it comes to shoveling snow.  Even with that straight in my mind, I think I’d still get in line to run this thing into a few snow banks.

Serious Snow Removal [YouTube]

If you’ve got more than a few inches of snow mounded up on your vehicle, forget about removing it with a brush — instead, make short work of the job with the solid face of the Sno Brum.

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Chipping ice sucks, there’s no doubt about that, but in this litigious society you can’t afford to just let ice sit on your walkway.  You can melt the ice with liquid or rock salt, but that’s slow, and that extra salt ain’t helping your grass.  You’re left with one choice — turn up the heat — and that’s where the Bare Blaster comes in.

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Winter in the northern states means it’s colder than a well-digger’s bum, or the snow’s up to your waist, or both.  Heavy snow can damage your roof, especially if the eaves weren’t properly designed to hold the extra weight.  Also, if your roof isn’t getting enough ventilation, ice dams can form when the snow on the warm part of the roof melts and then re-freezes as it reaches the cooler eaves.  You’d have to be nuts to climb on the roof to remove the snow, but you can remove it while standing safely on the ground — with a roof rake.

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Working outside in the winter, it’s hard enough dealing with the cold and the deep snow, and you don’t need the added pain of falling on your ass.  These MICROspikes from Kahtoola slip over your shoes or boots to give you traction on nearly any surface from ice and packed snow to concrete.

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If you’re working on your computer in the cold, you might wish you could type with boxing gloves on.  Computers are becoming commonplace on production floors and in utility vans, and a lot of people with cold hands have to routinely remove their hand gear to type, or to hit the tiny buttons on other tools.

Unless you’re running your laptop on battery power, these USB-heated convertible gloves could help out.  Even the non-powered version of these gloves might work pretty well, and you wouldn’t run as much risk of getting your hands sweaty before you go out into the real cold.  Or you could opt for a heated keyboard.

What’s the best way to keep from freezing your fingers off when you’re doing fine manipulation like typing?  Let us know in comments.

USB Gloves [USB Geek]
USB Gloves Street Pricing [Google Products]
USB Gloves Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Non-Powered Gloves Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Heated Keyboard Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Sometimes you can’t move a job to a place with proper light and heat for human beings to work in. Spaceflights, ship repair in the North Atlantic in winter, and underwater construction all require special tools and special outfits. Though the Gorilla Tool isn’t specific to any of them, it could come in handy — especially if you or your assistant haven’t got a good eye for bolt and nut sizes.

The Gorilla tool combines bolt-sizing and thread-sizing in a tight package with a pre-drilled lanyard hole.  Gorilla makes it of stainless steel so it won’t rust, and the large tension wheels seem designed for easy use — maybe easy enough for gloved hands.  The quality looks good, but it runs $45 for either the American or metric version.

Most of us will have the luxury of not needing a tool like this — going back to the toolbox isn’t likely to freeze off our delicate bits or run us out of air.  But if you really needed to be sure the first time…

Gorilla Tool [Corporate Site]

Winter takes its own sweet time coming to Texas, but even here “winterizing” happens — okay, maybe just a little.  Disappearing faucet covers are a big deal because nobody seems to know what the freezeless faucets are for, and window insulation film is a mythical substance.  But if you’ve got a little time and money, these window insulation kits from 3M can save you a bundle on your heating bills.

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An interesting thing occurs around the time of the first freeze:  Before the Weather Channel guy can say, “The temperature’s going to drop below freezing tonight,” all the faucet covers everywhere disappear around you.  The picture above shows a rare full box of them — not often seen in the wild.

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Is your snowblower missing something?  Perhaps you’re not satisfied with that 5 to 10 horses that your current unit puts out — it needs a bit more power, or maybe even a set of headers.  The guys at V8 Snowblowers can hook you up with a blower built around a 454 big block.

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If you’re installing 8-1/4″ horizontal lap siding, take a look at PacTool’s new PacStrips, designed to make installation faster and easier.  PacTool claims you can shave 25% off your installation time while maintaining the factory-set reveals.  As a bonus, PacStrips allow trapped water to drain behind the siding, increasing its life.

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Toolmongers living in cities that shut down for a few inches of snow needn’t read further.  The rest of us in the snow belt know that packing an emergency shovel in your vehicle during the winter is being prepared for the worst.  Even if you don’t have much space to store a full-sized shovel, you might have room for a shovel like the Penguin collapsible emergency snow shovel.

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You like the look of mulch and the way it keeps out the weeds, but you’re tired of putting down cubic yards of the stuff year after year. Take a look at rubber mulch — a number of companies grind up recycled tires to make it. One such company, International Mulch, sells many different products including bedding cover, playground cover, and pavers.

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