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Water Outage Worries Can Include No Heat

SCRANTON — A big side effect of the water outage: homes throughout south Scranton and Moosic are starting to lose their heat. On top of water worries, hom...

SCRANTON -- A big side effect of the water outage: homes throughout south Scranton and Moosic are starting to lose their heat.

On top of water worries, homeowners with steam heat now have to call plumbing and heating experts to get it back on again.

Water buffaloes are busy throughout south Scranton and Moosic as thousands of people learn what life is like in a home without water.

“Tough, tough, tough, the toilet facility is the worst thing. The water you can get away with,” said Tom Andrejack of Scranton.

While a lot of people are worried about water for their toilets and other needs at home, a lot of the houses in south Scranton have steam heat. That needs water too.

“The water should be up to this high and that's the reason why it's off.”

Workers from Gerald Smurl Mechanical were at a home in south Scranton because the steam boiler shut off when there was no water to feed the system.

Dave Sibio and Chris Lynch have been at a lot of houses with the same problem: no heat.

“Oh, it's been crazy. People haven't had water, so the boilers have been running out of water and we've just been coming to fill them up for them” said Lynch.

“Last night i went out on a couple, I was out until midnight.  Last night there was a few of them.  This morning there has been a lot more,” added Sibio.

They're filling the boilers with enough water, hoping to get them through the water outage. Unless you know what you're doing, they recommend you call an expert to do this.

They also have a recommendation for those with steam heat.

“The more that it runs, the higher you keep the temperature, the more water it uses.  Being warmer outside kind of helps a little bit and maybe lowering your thermostat a little bit will help you conserve a little bit of water,” Sibio explained.

Experts recommend you turn down the temperature on natural gas water heaters and turn off electric water heaters during the outage.

If your home heating is a closed hot water baseboard system, you should be fine.

That includes Bill Uher. He just needs water for other needs.

“As long as it stays where it's supposed to, we're good.  If it gets too high or too low, I'll shut it down.”

Click here for Pennsylvania American Water recommendations for water heaters.

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