After 3,000 calls in three weeks about frozen pipes, Toronto Water tried to reassure anxious customers with a step-by-step guide on what services to expect.

The part about establishing a highline water connection to a neighbours house was particularly interesting to people such as Jennifer Matthews, a resident of the Beaches.

Ms. Matthews and her husband are among a growing group of Torontonians discovering their inner handyman after severe weather. Their efforts create a stopgap until hard-pressed city services can help, though not without some risks.

On Monday, a day after losing water, the couple rigged their home to a neighbours supply with three end-to-end hoses, a bag of parts from a plumbing store and a tip from a stranger. The stranger, a parent at their daughters school, overheard Ms. Matthewss story and passed along what she had learned during the 2013 ice storm.

I came almost running home and said, Oh my God, you can do it yourselves, Ms. Matthews said.

Toronto Water has established more than 400 highlines during this years record-breaking cold snap, and there are 550 households with no water that havent yet been seen.

The agency doesnt know how many people have set up do-it-yourself connections, but general manager Lou Di Geronimo says people are free to do what they want on their own property.

Hours after discovering the freeze-up, Ms. Matthews ushered her two daughters, 11 and 14, across the street in their pyjamas to brush their teeth at a neighbours house, where the eldest insisted on washing her hair.

The next morning, she called Toronto Water and learned it could be up to 48 hours before the call was returned.

This was what, 14 hours in? I was already so sick of it, she said.

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Hair dryers and hoses: Frustrated homeowners find DIY solutions for frozen pipes

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Orlando, FL (PRWEB) March 03, 2015

At some point, every successful business owner steps back and asks, How can I serve more people and provide better service? For Gary Cochran, the answer was simple, open TruBlue Total House Care of Orlando.

TruBlue Total House Care of Orlando specializes in providing complete house care, including maid services, lawn care, home improvements and emergency repairs. Opening TruBlue of Orlando all started nine years ago when Cochran opened his first business, Visiting Angels, which specialized in in-home senior care.

Over all those years, we had many clients looking for referrals for housekeeping, handyman services, lawn care and other home-related services. We just got to a point where we decided it would be a natural progression to be able to offer those house care services as a complement to our home-care services, Cochran said. TruBlue fit the bill perfectly and were excited to serve our community in this new way.

TruBlue of Orlando serves Orlando, Altamonte Springs, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Park, Hunters Creek, Williamsburg and the surrounding areas. All TruBlue franchises are fully insured and bonded and all employees are background checked and certified.

TruBlue works with home owners, business owners, real estate professionals, general contractors and property managers to maintain homes and rental properties, improve curb appeal, make final preparations to sell homes and more.

Cochrans background is in manufacturing and, when he opened Visiting Angels, it was because he knew there had to be a better way to get the care seniors needed. That commitment to providing needed services in a caring way continues with TruBlue Total House Care of Orlando.

When I opened Visiting Angels, my parents were getting older and I understood what services our older adults needed. With that company and now with TruBlue we are providing services that help keep people at home in a safe and comfortable environment, Cochran said.

This is a family owned business being led by an experienced business ownership and management team. Although TruBlue is new to the area, we are already fully staffed and ready to serve you and your family. Were not some fly by night company who comes to fix your plumbing. Were here to create relationships and become the long-term house managers for your home, he said. Were providing the help seniors and busy families need to get their weekends back. By working with TruBlue, you can have someone else work on those home projects so you can spend time with the people you love.

To learn more about Trublue Total House Care of Orlando, call (407)203-6000, email GCochran(at)TruBlueHouseCare(dot)com or visit http://www.TruBlueOrlando.com.

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Gary Cochran Opens TruBlue Total House Care in Orlando

Amazon.com, is one of the more mystifying companies in the business world today. It is disrupting seemingly every industry it can reach from retail to book publishing to cloud computing and delivery. Sales have been unstoppable since the company's inception in 1994. Last year, it grew revenue nearly 20% to $89 billion, however it still reported a net loss of $241 million for the year. Following its most recent earnings report, the stock soared as results topped analyst estimates, but with a market cap near $178 billion and no profits last year, the company is an anomaly on Wall Street as no other publicly traded enterprise is anywhere near as valuable with a similar lack of profitability. Its balance sheet has less than $2 billion in retained earnings, the best measure of accumulated profit over a company's history.

CEO Jeff Bezos has made a mantra out of "long term" and so far the market has kept faith in him. With its tentacles wrapped up in several different industries, Amazon could either turn its competitive advantages into huge profits, or the paradigm could shift and outside competition prove too fierce, forcing a slowdown in sales growth before profitability arrives, which would crush the stock price. The debate continues to rage about Amazon's future prospects, but at least one meaningful indicator is signaling that the company is taking significant steps toward profitability.

From 2011 to 2014, gross margin and gross profit improved significantly as the chart below shows.

Source: Amazon.com SEC Filings

As you can see, gross margin improved incrementally each year from 22.4% to 29.5%, and along with it gross profit jumped nearly 150% from $10.8 billion to $26.2 billion, which is much faster than the 85% total revenue growth in that period. Amazon, however,downplays the importance of those figures, saying, "We believe that income from operations is a more meaningful measure than gross profit and gross margin due to the diversity of our product categories and services."

Despite that statement, the increasing gross margin offers perhaps the best evidence and insight into the ways the company is changing and how it's moving closer to profitability.

What is gross margin and why is it important? In accounting terms, gross margin is the percentage of revenue left over after deducting the cost of goods sold -- the costs directly associated with the sale of a product or service. Essentially, gross margin represents the money that is left over after variable costs are taken care of. The remaining gross profit can then be spent on fixed costs or investments, returned to shareholders, or hoarded on the balance sheet.

Amazon attributes its gross margin expansion "primarily due to service sales increasing as a percentage of total sales. Service sales represent third-party seller fees earned (including commissions) and related shipping fees, digital content subscriptions, and non-retail activities such as AWS, advertising services, and our co-branded credit card agreements." Each of those categories represent more profitable revenue streams than its core bottom-dollar e-commerce business.

As gross margin has increased, the percentage of expenses for fulfillment, technology and content, and marketing, which better reflect fixed costs, have increased.

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This One Key Metric Says Amazon.com, Inc. Is Well On Its Way To Profitability