The simplest things defeat me

Saturday, 10:59 pm

By Kate

Jan

12

2008

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:

larger drop down image

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.