phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (03/03/85)
My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it
and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored
normal function.
1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to
do with it?
2) How did it know the pilot was out?
--
Why, that's more useless than the left thumb of a touch typist!
Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPAed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) (03/04/85)
> My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it > and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored > normal function. > > 1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to > do with it? It's possible that a power failure did it, but I don't think so. All of the gas-fired heaters I know of use electricity only to control the main valve (via the thermostat) and to run fans. Maybe a gas outage? That's *very* unlikely, since the gas companies are quite careful not to restart flow when valves might be open. > 2) How did it know the pilot was out? There's a valve operated by the heat of the pilot. If there's no pilot, then the valve closes and cuts off the entire gas supply. So far as I know, this is an entirely mechanical setup. -- Ed Gould mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94710 USA {ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed +1 415 644 0146
cmoore@amdimage.UUCP (chris moore) (03/05/85)
> My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it > and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored > normal function. > > 1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to > do with it? > 2) How did it know the pilot was out? > As far as I know, a power failure will not put out a pilot light. I've heard that a pilot light may be blown out by a strong wind on a windy day, but that wouldn't account for all the times my pilot light has gone out recently. As far has how it knows the pilot light is out, the heater in my appartment has a heat sensor that is continually torched by the pilot light. If that sensor cools down, then the pilot light is out and the heater shuts off the gas. To relight my pilot, I have to turn the knob to 'Pilot' and hold it in, which bypasses the safety and allows the gas to flow. I have to hold the knob in until the pilot light has been lit long enough to heat up the sensor (1-2 minutes), then it will keep running by itself. -- "My system is so slow we don't use 'who' anymore - it's faster to walk around the building and count the users." Chris Moore (408) 749-4692 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!amdimage!cmoore
ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (03/05/85)
> 1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to > do with it? Got me. > 2) How did it know the pilot was out? > There is generally some thermostatic thing that shuts the gas off to when the pilot is not lit. That's why when you relight the pilot, you've got to push down on that little knob for a few seconds while it warms up.
res@ihuxn.UUCP (Rich Strebendt) (03/07/85)
> > My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it > > and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored > > normal function. > > > 2) How did it know the pilot was out? > > There's a valve operated by the heat of the pilot. If there's no > pilot, then the valve closes and cuts off the entire gas supply. > So far as I know, this is an entirely mechanical setup. No. There is an electrical solinoid that is operated by the electricity generated by a thermocouple upon which the pilot light impinges. No pilot light => no heat on end of thermocouple => no electricity being generated => solinoid drops out closing gas supply valve. The need to heat up the thermocouple to get enough current to hold the solinoid in is the reason that you have to hold the valve to the pilot light open for a while (typically about a minute) after lighting the pilot light. If you find the pilot light out repeatedly with no good explanation (like a contractor ripped out a gas main), then look at the possibility that the thermocouple is dying. It should be fairly inexpensive to replace, and on an old unit may be the cause of the kind of problem you may be having. Rich Strebendt ...!ihnp4!ihuxn!res
jhillis@ihuxx.UUCP (Jeffrey Hillis) (03/08/85)
> > My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it > > and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored > > normal function. > > > > 1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to > > do with it? > > It's possible that a power failure did it, but I don't think so. All > of the gas-fired heaters I know of use electricity only to control > the main valve (via the thermostat) and to run fans. Maybe a gas > outage? That's *very* unlikely, since the gas companies are quite > careful not to restart flow when valves might be open. > I have, on occasion, had my gas furnace pilot go out. This seems to have happened only on unusually windy days (in chicago, an unusually windy day means hurricane force winds :-)). Perhaps you just got a blast of wind down the vent pipe. If this happened often, you could put a cap on top of the vent pipe. Note that by cap, I *don't* mean close the pipe off, instead just a dunce cap shaped cover which sits above the top of the pipe. You could probably buy such an item at a home repair/supply store.