Servpro of Hazleton, Dallas and Harveys Lake

Name: Servpro of Hazleton, Dallas and Harveys Lake
Address: Hazleton, PA, 18201, US
Telephone: +15707143828

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Servpro of Hazleton, Dallas and Harveys Lake

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Fire & Water - Cleanup & Restoration. 24/7 Emergency Residential & Commercial Services.

10/30/2026

Halloween is tomorrow night across the mountain, and the costumes are hanging by the door. Most are polyester, nylon, and loose fabric, and they'll walk past a candlelit pumpkin, a decorative candle on the table, and a fire pit in the backyard.

Synthetic costume fabric does not burn the way cotton does. It melts, it sticks, and it keeps going. A trailing cape or a witch's sleeve brushing a candle is a Halloween injury emergency rooms see every year, and it happens in the kitchen as often as it does outside.

Before the trick-or-treaters head out.

🔵 Battery candles in the pumpkins and on the table. No open flame where costumes will pass.
🔵 Look for a label that says flame resistant on store-bought costumes. Homemade ones usually are not.
🔵 Trim capes, sleeves, and hems so nothing drags on the ground or trails behind.
🔵 Flashlights or glow sticks instead of candles in anything a kid carries.
🔵 Keep the fire pit well away from where the party gathers, and keep the kids on the far side of it.

Have a safe Halloween up here. If a decoration or a fire pit does catch the house, SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the smoke and the cleanup. 570-714-3828.

10/29/2026

Furnaces, wood stoves, kerosene heaters, and generators all run on the mountain this time of year, and every one of them makes carbon monoxide. The only thing between a family and a bad night is a working detector.

CO has no smell, no color, and no taste. The first symptoms are a headache and fatigue, which feel like the end of a long day, so people go to bed. In a house with a cracked heat exchanger, a blocked flue, or a generator running too close to a window, it can end that way. Pennsylvania sees deaths from this every winter, and most of them are in homes with no working detector.

This week.

🔵 One CO detector on every level and one outside every sleeping area. Not one for the whole house.
🔵 Press the test button on each. Replace batteries now, not when it chirps at 3 a.m.
🔵 Check the date on the back. CO sensors wear out. Most detectors are good for 5 to 7 years, then they get replaced, not re-batteried.
🔵 Mount them at knee height or on the wall, not on the ceiling next to the smoke alarm. CO mixes with air, it does not rise like smoke.
🔵 If one goes off, everybody goes outside first and asks questions second.

A furnace or stove problem that releases CO usually leaves soot and smoke damage behind too. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the cleanup. 570-714-3828.

10/28/2026

Camps and cottages across the mountain are getting winterized this week, and the most common mistake is the antifreeze in the traps.

Every sink, tub, toilet, and floor drain has a trap, the U-shaped bend that holds water to block sewer gas. That water freezes in a cold building and cracks the trap, and in a toilet it cracks the bowl. The fix is to pour antifreeze in after draining the lines. The mistake is grabbing the wrong jug.

Automotive antifreeze, the green or orange kind, is ethylene glycol. It is toxic, it is bad for septic systems, and it attacks the rubber seals and gaskets in the plumbing. RV and marine antifreeze, the pink kind, is propylene glycol. It is made for exactly this job.

Doing it right.

🔵 Use only pink RV antifreeze from the hardware or farm store. Never the automotive jug from the garage.
🔵 Drain the water lines first, then pour about a cup into every sink and tub drain and the floor drain.
🔵 Flush the toilet to empty the tank, sponge out what is left, and pour antifreeze into both the bowl and the tank.
🔵 Do not forget the washer standpipe, the dishwasher, and the shower.

A cracked trap or split toilet bowl can flood the floor the day the water comes back on. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the spring surprises. 570-714-3828.

10/27/2026

The dryer runs harder in cold weather than in any other month. Heavier clothes, more loads, wet gear from outside, and a vent that has been collecting lint since the last time anyone pulled the machine out.

Dryer lint is about as flammable as dry grass, and the vent is a tube full of it running through the wall right behind a heating element. A kinked or clogged vent traps the heat. The lint in the duct ignites. The fire runs the length of the vent into the wall and up into the floor above. Fire departments across the state pull more dryer fires out of houses in November and December than any other time of year.

Twenty minutes this weekend.

🔵 Pull the dryer out and disconnect the duct. Clean it end to end with a brush kit or a vacuum.
🔵 Replace any foil or white plastic duct with rigid metal. The flexible stuff traps lint and burns.
🔵 Go outside and check the exhaust flap. It should swing open freely with the dryer running. Clear the lint and the bird nest.
🔵 Clean the lint screen every load, and once a month wash it with soap. Fabric softener films it over.

A vent fire in the laundry room spreads into the wall before the smoke alarm goes off. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the fire, smoke, and rebuild. 570-714-3828.

10/26/2026

Sunny and 40 on the mountain this morning after another near-freezing night, and the last of the leaves are coming off the maples around the lake. This is the week a lot of cottages at Harvey's Lake get buttoned up for the season.

How the place gets closed in October decides what the door opens on in May. The lake houses that come through winter fine were shut down the same way, every year. The ones that get the burst pipe or the mold were closed in a hurry.

The six that matter.

🔵 Shut the main valve, then open every faucet, flush every toilet, and leave them open so the lines drain empty.
🔵 Drain the water heater. A tank full of water in a cold house splits.
🔵 Pour RV antifreeze in every trap, toilet bowl, and floor drain so the water in them cannot freeze.
🔵 Heat on at 55 if the pipes are not drained, or heat off entirely if they are. Not 45. That is how pipes in the wall go.
🔵 Leave interior doors and cabinet doors open and a few bags of moisture absorber in the closed rooms.
🔵 Someone local who can walk through after a storm and after the first deep freeze.

A lake house that opens in spring to a burst pipe has been wet for months. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake knows these cottages. 570-714-3828.

10/23/2026

The first real stove fires of the season are burning across the mountain this week, and so is a habit that goes back generations up here. Wet boots, mittens, and hats on the hearth to dry by the stove.

It works right up until it does not. A wool hat that slides off a chair onto the hearth, a boot that tips against the stove body, a pair of gloves left on the stovetop for one minute too long. The materials that keep hands warm are the same ones that catch fastest, and a stove running hot is hundreds of degrees on the surface.

Dry the gear without lighting it.

🔵 A boot rack or a drying rack three feet back from the stove, not on the hearth.
🔵 Nothing on top of the stove, the stovepipe, or the hearth pad while it is lit. Not for a minute.
🔵 A small fan pointed at the rack dries faster than heat alone and keeps the gear away from the stove.
🔵 Teach the kids. The rack is where wet things go, and the stove is not a shelf.

A hearth fire takes the rug, the furniture, and the wall behind the stove in minutes. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the cleanup. 570-714-3828.

10/22/2026

Nights in the 30s on the mountain this week, and the space heaters are coming out of the closets. The one rule that prevents more heater fires than any other is also the one most people break.

Never plug a space heater into an extension cord or a power strip.

A space heater pulls 1,500 watts, about as much as the circuit can give. A standard extension cord is not built for that load running for hours. The cord heats up, the insulation softens, and the cord melts into the carpet or the floor long before the heater itself has a problem. Fire departments pull melted cords out of living rooms every winter.

If the outlet is not close enough.

🔵 Move the heater, not the cord. It plugs directly into the wall or it does not run.
🔵 If the room truly needs an outlet where there is none, an electrician can add one in an afternoon.
🔵 Check the outlet after an hour. A warm faceplate means the wiring behind it is struggling.
🔵 Never run a heater cord under a rug or through a doorway where it gets pinched.

A cord fire under a sofa is in the drapes in seconds. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles the smoke, soot, and rebuild. 570-714-3828.

10/21/2026

The firewood is stacked, and the stoves are lit across the Back Mountain. The pile by the back door is about to spend five months under snow, and how it is covered decides whether it burns clean in February or hisses and smokes.

Wet wood is the problem on two fronts. It burns cold and dirty, which packs creosote into the chimney faster than anything else. And a wet pile stacked against the house holds snowmelt against the siding and the sill all winter.

The stack that works.

🔵 Cover the top only. A tarp down the sides traps moisture and the wood never dries. A sheet of metal roofing or a tarp pinned on top with the sides open lets air through.
🔵 Off the ground on pallets or rails so the bottom row is not sitting in slush.
🔵 A few feet from the house, not against it. Mice, carpenter ants, and moisture all come in on a pile touching the siding.
🔵 Bring in only a day or two of wood at a time. A big pile inside brings the bugs and the damp in with it.
🔵 Knock the snow off before carrying it in. A load of snowy wood dropped by the stove is a puddle on the floor.

Wet firewood burning all winter is a chimney fire by March. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles smoke and fire restoration across the mountain. 570-714-3828.

10/21/2026

Big congratulations to Joe Doran on reaching his 5-year work anniversary with us!

Joe, thank you for 5 years of hard work, dedication, and excellent service to our team and community. We are incredibly grateful to have you on the SERVPRO team. Here’s to many more years of success together! 🙌🎉

10/20/2026

Gutter season on the mountain means ladders, and more homeowners get hurt cleaning gutters every fall than get hurt doing any other job on the house. Cold hands, wet rungs, a leaf blower in one hand, and a reach that is six inches too far.

The gutters still need clearing before the freeze. The question is how.

Doing it safely.

🔵 Ladder on firm, level ground, feet a quarter of its height out from the wall. Never on a slope, a deck board, or frozen mulch.
🔵 Someone holds the base. If no one is around, the job waits.
🔵 Belt buckle stays between the rails. Move the ladder instead of leaning.
🔵 Both hands free. A bucket on a hook and a scoop beat a blower on a ladder every time.
🔵 Three feet of ladder above the gutter line so there is something to hold stepping on and off.
🔵 Gloves, and never a metal ladder near the service drop.

A gutter extension wand on a hose does most of the job from the ground. For a two-story house on a hillside, a gutter company is cheaper than the emergency room.

Ice dam damage from gutters that did not get cleared is a wall and ceiling job. SERVPRO of Hazleton, Dallas and Harvey's Lake handles it. 570-714-3828.

Address

Hazleton, PA
18201

Telephone

+15707143828

Website

https://www.servpro.com/locations/pa/servpro-of-hazleton-dallas-harveys-lake

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