Fewer Than 17 Homes Still Without Heat In Boulder County
NIWOT, Colo. (CBS4) – After approximately 7,200 homes in Boulder County went without natural gas Friday night, only about 17 homes around Niwot, Boulder, and Longmont we're still without heat Monday morning.
Xcel Energy crews worked to restore heat to the homes over the weekend. They were relighting pilot lights all day Saturday and Sunday.
The outage was caused by an equipment failure.
Crews had to relight everyone's pilot light by hand. Residents were urged not to relight it by themselves.
"We can't reintroduce gas into the system if their appliance is out. That gas would eventfully and potentially flow into their house, then we'd have bigger issues. And actually we don't think that's an error, but it has taken more time. We got most of those shutoffs done late Friday night," said Xcel Energy Spokesman Mark Stutz.
Xcel crews are no longer going door to door to restore service. They're asking people to call them at to schedule an appointment. They say relighting a pilot light on their own could be dangerous.
"We've seen instances in the past where there is a buildup of gas. When you reignite your pilot, you're going to get more gas igniting than you want to ignite," said Stutz.
Xcel said the equipment failure had nothing to do with the cold.
