Water filter service in Scranton, PA

What is in the water in Scranton

Scranton is served by Pennsylvania American Water, Lake Scranton system .

Source water: Lake Scranton, with the treatment plant sitting on the reservoir itself and rated at a maximum 33 million gallons a day. The lake is supplemented directly from the Williams Bridge, Elmhurst, Curtis and Hollister reservoirs, and the Griffin Reservoir and Summit Lake feed a separate 6 million gallon a day plant at Chinchilla on Leggett's Creek that serves as the alternate supply. Six reservoirs behind two plants is a lot of stored water for a city this size, and it is the reason the supply holds up through a dry summer. The alternate plant matters more than an alternate usually does. When the main plant is off line for maintenance, the water reaching part of the city comes from a different set of reservoirs through a different treatment train, so a taste change during a planned outage is the supply changing rather than anything going wrong. Reported by Pennsylvania American Water for 2024.

Two numbers from the utility's own water quality sheet shape the decisions here. The distribution system averages pH 7.2 and sodium runs around 15 parts per million from the Lake Scranton plant, and no fluoride is added, which is unusual enough to be worth knowing if you were choosing equipment on the assumption that it is. The soft water and near neutral pH combination is the part that matters for plumbing. Soft water carries little dissolved mineral, so it does not lay down a protective scale, and at pH 7.2 it is mildly aggressive towards metal pipe. Corrosion control is therefore doing more work on this supply than the low hardness figure would lead you to expect, and pinhole leaks in copper are a more common complaint here than scale is. The plant holds the Environmental Protection Agency's Partnership for Safe Drinking Water twenty year Directors Award, given for sustained performance beyond the regulatory minimum on turbidity removal, which is a reasonable signal that the filtration side is not where the attention is needed.

Reported hardness is 2.9 grains per gallon , which is moderate. Source: Pennsylvania American Water, 2025. The Lake Scranton plant publishes a range of 19 to 80 parts per million, which is 1.1 to 4.7 grains per gallon, and a more recent table narrows it to 1.2 to 2.7. The figure shown is the midpoint of the published range. Water this soft gives a softener nothing useful to do. Well supplied parts of the same company's wider territory run 118 to 496 parts per million, 7 to 29 grains, so a hardness figure quoted from a neighbouring district can be wrong here by a factor of ten.

These figures describe the distribution system. Your own tap can differ, and for lead it very likely does.

We do not yet hold a sourced figure for every field on this page. Where something is missing it is left blank rather than estimated, because an unsourced number here would look like information.

Buildings and plumbing in Scranton

What this means in practice

• Hard water. Confirm with hardness test strip or titration kit, in grains per gallon.
• Chlorine and chloramine taste. Confirm with free and total chlorine test strip, plus the utility report for the disinfectant type.

What these figures mean for filter choice

At around 2.9 grains per gallon this is soft water. A softener here would be solving a problem you do not have, and we would tell you so rather than quote for one. Scale is not what is shortening your water heater's life in Scranton.

Filters that apply here

• Under-sink carbon filters. A carbon block cartridge on the cold line under the sink.
• Reverse osmosis, tank. A membrane system under the sink that produces treated water to a dedicated tap and stores it in a small pressure tank.
• Whole-house filtration. A filter plumbed into the main line where water enters the building, so every tap, shower, and appliance downstream is fed treated water.
• Sediment filters. A mechanical filter that captures sand, silt, rust flakes, and other particles.

Installation in Scranton

• Free water testing. Typically 45 to 60 minutes.
• Whole-house filter installation. Typically 3 to 5 hours.
• Repair, any brand. Typically 1 to 3 hours.

Renters, co-ops, and businesses

• Options for renters
• Co-ops and condos
• Offices and commercial sites

Nearby areas

• Allentown, PA , Lehigh County
• Bethlehem, PA , Northampton County
• Reading, PA , Berks County

Sources

• Pennsylvania American Water, 2024.
• Pennsylvania American Water, 2025.
• Population: US Census Bureau sub-county population estimates, Vintage 2024 (POPESTIMATE2024).