Hi folks, this is Lou Manfredini, Ace’s “Helpful Hardware Man” and I’ve got some tips for one of the most complained about household issues: pilot lights. Hopefully we are all moving to a world without pilot lights, but for those of us living in older homes, it’s not something we can get rid of just yet.
The biggest thing when dealing with pilot lights is to make sure that you have a good sensing device, called a thermocouple, which can sense when the light is on. These need to be changed every 5-6 years and need to be cleaned on a regular basis. If you are having a hard time keeping your pilot light on, 9 out of 10 times, you just need to check your thermocouple.
If your pilot light that is attached to your heater or furnace is going out, it could be from wind that is coming through the chimney and literally blowing it out. A way to stop this from happening is to use a mechanical damper, which opens and closes when needed.
Finally, if you have an electronic ignition, you might want to check that your flame sensor is working properly. This is a piece of metal that is shaped similar to a large paperclip. When the gas turns on it ignites and senses when the flame is on.
Pilot Lights go out for several reasons, but with winter coming quickly many of you will find that over the cooling season, the Pilot Light on your Gas Furnace has either gone out naturally, or you shut it off after the last time your heater was used, and it has to be relit in order to get the burners putting some heat into your home!
While the use of standing pilot lights is truly on the way out of use and most of the newer systems use a solid state electronic ignition model, there are still several units that are less than 10 years old, that use the older gas pilot light method of firing off the burners. ...Read more about Lighting your own Pilot Light
