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The simplest things defeat me
I took another look at the natural gas meter today and practically ran all the way to the basement to turn off the pilot light to the gas furnace. Anything to cut use that isn’t being put to any good purpose. I’m supposed to run the furnace at least once a month during the winter, but I don’t think the pilot light needs to be on between firings. So...I crawled around on the basement floor this afternoon, trying to figure out how to turn the pilot light off.
Supposedly, it’s very simple. Here’s a photo of the knob that governs the gas/pilot light:
The directions say to turn the knob clockwise until “pilot” is at the top by that little diamond. Then I am supposed to push in the on/off crossbar into the indent/opening and turn it clockwise again until the “off” is locked beneath the diamond at due north.
I’m fine until pushing the crossbar into the indent/opening part. It won’t go all the way in and so won’t lock. I have pushed and pushed and pushed. Just won’t go far enough in to turn and lock. I know this can’t be on the order of rocket science, so I’m baffled. Maybe I’m overlooking something stupidly simple. But, as things currently stand, the pilot light is still lit. And it’s driving me nuts because the pilot light is HUGE and it is burning untold amounts of gas for NO GOOD REASON. I’m so disgusted.
Most gas devices have a cut off so if the pilot accidentally goes off, your house will not fill with gas and explode. So you can probably go down there with some bellows and blow the thing out. That said, if you can’t get if off with the knob, you’re probably also not going to be able to get it back on with the knob.
And then you could play damsel in distress and get someone to help you light it. I have a history with never being able to get these things lit.
Well, as it turned out, it was stupidly simple. I sat down with a glass of wine last night and studied the photograph. It’s easier than crouching on the basement floor with a flashlight looking at the genuine article. I dunno, maybe it was the wine that cleared my head. It occurred to me that I was probably trying to push the knob too far in. By the looks of the picture, I only needed to push it in just far enough for the little lip on the bottom of the crossbar to catch under the rim of the casing.
I went down and gave that a whirl. It worked. Pilot light is extinguished. Now let’s hope that when I go to light it, I won’t end up having to replace the pilot light sensor like I did with the water heater the last time I tried to relight that pilot light.
I would be terrified to blow the pilot light out. Just on the chance that the safety feature would malfunction and I’d end up evacuating the entire neighborhood...just before the house exploded.
Ya, not such a good idea. Those things tend to happen to you and I LOL!
Standing pilot lights are fast disappearing. I don’t think they make furnaces without electronic ignition any more and gas dryers definitely don’t have them any more.
At today’s average prices you probably pay about $8 a month to keep the pilot light lit. You can have the furnace converted to electric ignition, but it might take some time to recoup the cost in fuel savings.
I’m certainly interested in seeing how much savings accrue by the end of the week now that the pilot light is out. I’m not kidding when I say it was huge. I could cook a meal over it. Our gas prices in the winter are ridiculous, so converting to electronic ignition might pay for itself more quickly than one might think. Or I could just leave the pilot light off. ;)