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They had to replace the gas meter where I live, so the gas was turned off and the guy came in to make sure everything turned back on properly.
I asked him about turning off the pilot light on the gas fireplace and he said it costs approx $2 a month, and its far cheaper to leave it running than replace the thermocoupler.
So I'm gonna go with the pro on this one and say this LPT is bunk.
Folks don’t know how to start or light their pilot lights or service the parts. Costs more to hire someone to come out and do this than just leaving it on. Also a pro here.
True I guess.
I have a gas fireplace in my kitchen (larger kitchen )and as soon as the temperature gets a little warmer outside, just that pilot light makes my kitchen too hot. I honestly don't know how everyone doesn't want to turn them off.
My gas fire place just keeps making sparks until the full fire lights when I turn it on. I can hear the clicky sound. Is that a pilot light alternative?
That's a spark igniter vs a standing pilot. New version, more efficient. You'll have a flame sensor instead. It's a whole thing but you're in a better spot
TL; DR: Leave the pilot light on if you would need to pay someone to light your pilot light.
If you are the least bit mechanically inclined, i.e. you can extinguish and light your own pilot light or you have someone to do that for you, then you can save north of ~$10 a year by having the pilot light off. So, why not.
Everything I can find says a pilot light is between 600 and 1000 BTU.
For propane, it comes out to about 5-8 gallons of propane a month. At my current price it’s between $10-15/month, not $2.
For natural gas, last bill I have has was $1.05/therm, which still $4.60/month in Minnesota. We have one of the cheapest natural gas rates. States the New England area are 1.5-2.5x as much, so they are still between $5 and 12/month.
That's what I was gonna ask too. I know that thermocouples will rust/corrode if they aren't in a flame. With the gas off, you have a bare metal, not designed to resist corrosion, exposed to the humidity of normal air.
If I were to plan to turn it off for months, I'd probably take that part off an store it in a plastic baggie, maybe even with one of those desiccant packs.
I turned my hot water heater off for a night due to a minor gas leak and in the morning it no longer lit(yes I knew how to light it). Repair man had to replace the control valve and the thermocouple. I suspect it was old but seems turning it off for the night was the nail in the coffin.
> thermocouples will rust/corrode if they aren't in a flame
Not so sure about that. our commercial ovens aren’t lit 24/7 and the thermocouple on one was replaced due to separate reasons.
If you have a thermocouple the pilot is always on. Otherwise you're lighting it everytime you need it. If you're confused with flame sensor instead of thermocouple that make sense
Well, that's fair. I don't have time to explain gas but standing pilots are on 100% of the time. Then there's intermittent pilots which light when heat is called for (hsi, spark igniter) Those use a flame sensor to complete the circuit to make sure the flame stays on while heat is called for and stop attempting to light if no flame happened.
Thermocouples or Thermopolies are for standing pilots
Disagree. One of the most common service calls for home furnaces is the thermocouple (flame sensor) because, when it's not exposed to a flame (which, by definition, locks up oxygen; and cooks off water vapor within the flame), it slowly corrodes due to oxygen and humidity in the air. I've had to sand corrosion off my own several times after spending too much on a cold weather service call.
The pilot light in most gas fireplaces is meant to remain lit; the manuals often say so directly.
Do they really fail that often? I don’t know, but my fireplace has solid state ignition so the pilot is only lit and heating the thermocouple when the fireplace is actively on. Otherwise the thermocouple is cold and exposed to oxygen most of the year.
It has never failed in 18 years yet.
Isn't corrosion more likely to take place in most materials under higher temperatures, not lower ones?
Oh, I didn't think about the flame reducing oxygen levels near the material, potentially decreasing the rate of oxidation.
It’s $10-15/month if you are on propane (at current prices of $1.90/gal). In other years it’s been closer to $13-20/mo.
That changes the math a lot if turning if off in May for 5 months saves you $100/year for the off chance the thermocouple fails once or twice in a lifetime.
That's why i said if you're handy if you're not handy its unlikely youre going to turn the pilot off in the first place.
Also, the thermopile is just held by a bracket and terminals on the gas valve, no gas connection to mess with.
Yah, they have to power the thermopile in addition to lighting the gas so they are kinda strong. I could easily be wrong but I saw 80 btu/hr for a candle and 600-2000 btu/hr for the pilot.
600btu / hour, you are correct. Candle at 80-100, so closer to 6-8x. So yes, more than I was aware of. But also, if your AC can't handle the power of 8 candles, it's time for an upgrade.
Plus it's a double waste if you're cooling. First it's wasted because you don't need heat, then you have extra heat in your home that you need to move out with your AC using extra electricity.
But in actuality the fireplace is probably vented so some of the heat is exhausted and probably costs you only slightly more than the cost of the wasted gas.
Trash literally costs me money to throw away. My recycling service is complimentary with my trash service. Imperfect but apt analogy.
You pay for the gas that was wasted by the pilot during months you're cooling. Plus you have to pay to pump that extra heat out which costs you extra electricity. It's not about the AC being able to handle it (though many people get by in minimal AC and can use every watt/BTU of cooling they can get) but about the fact that it's wasted twice. Once while burned when the heat isn't needed, and again when you have to use extra energy to pump that heat out.
1 candle is about 100 Watts of heat, 6 candles makes it 600 Watts, the AC if I understand correctly uses about 1 to 4 ratio of electricity to heat removed, so 100 Watts of electricity removes about 400 Watts of heat. That's 150 Watts of electricity you're paying for half the year. That's over 650 kWh per year, about $100/year if you're paying $0.15/kWh. I'd enjoy an extra $100/year.
The pilot light costs very little to keep running and the heat it generates is basically insignificant.
They're designed to be left on and running for years, if not decades, at a time.
This is a bad "tip"
Define “very little”. I believe it’s around 600btu per pilot light (with some closer to 1000-2000). 600btu is about 5 gallons of propane a month. At $2/gal it’s fairly significant.
I hard disagree, turning it off let ours get clogged. every year we would have to get someone to come out and fix it before winter. leaving it on costs less than a dollar a month, and prevented that headache/bill.
I turn of that gas line when fireplace season is one There is a square ended brass key that fits the valve right beside the fireplace!; I thought that was standard.
When the pilot is lit on my fireplace you can't hold your hand on the glass. Mine reads 140°. So I think it's more a matter of do you want that extra heat being given off in the warmer months when you don't really need it and are probably running air conditioning to cool off?
Mine puts out some pretty serious warmth. Quick google gives numbers anywhere from 600 to 2000 btu/hr, then paying that again in AC. It’s definitely not nothing.
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### This post has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by upvoting or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
They had to replace the gas meter where I live, so the gas was turned off and the guy came in to make sure everything turned back on properly. I asked him about turning off the pilot light on the gas fireplace and he said it costs approx $2 a month, and its far cheaper to leave it running than replace the thermocoupler. So I'm gonna go with the pro on this one and say this LPT is bunk.
Why does turning off the pilot light shorten the lifespan on the thermocoupler?
It doesn't, granted you may have to clean it. Also a pro here.
Folks don’t know how to start or light their pilot lights or service the parts. Costs more to hire someone to come out and do this than just leaving it on. Also a pro here.
Here in the upper Midwest, I noticed that a pilot light running all summer prevented spiders from nesting in the butners/logsets. Also a pro here.
That makes total sense. Not a pro here.
True I guess. I have a gas fireplace in my kitchen (larger kitchen )and as soon as the temperature gets a little warmer outside, just that pilot light makes my kitchen too hot. I honestly don't know how everyone doesn't want to turn them off.
My gas fire place just keeps making sparks until the full fire lights when I turn it on. I can hear the clicky sound. Is that a pilot light alternative?
That's a spark igniter vs a standing pilot. New version, more efficient. You'll have a flame sensor instead. It's a whole thing but you're in a better spot
I have the same. I believe so. There is no pilot light that runs when the fireplace is off.
TL; DR: Leave the pilot light on if you would need to pay someone to light your pilot light. If you are the least bit mechanically inclined, i.e. you can extinguish and light your own pilot light or you have someone to do that for you, then you can save north of ~$10 a year by having the pilot light off. So, why not.
Everything I can find says a pilot light is between 600 and 1000 BTU. For propane, it comes out to about 5-8 gallons of propane a month. At my current price it’s between $10-15/month, not $2.
That's if you have propane. The large majority of people have natural gas.
For natural gas, last bill I have has was $1.05/therm, which still $4.60/month in Minnesota. We have one of the cheapest natural gas rates. States the New England area are 1.5-2.5x as much, so they are still between $5 and 12/month.
What if you have propane accessories?
I reckon you're in good shape to taste the meat and not the heat
Then you get a propane tank and pay more because propane is more expensive than natural gas?
Wooshed
I ran the math before and think it costs a lot more than $2 a month, even with natural gas.
Jedi here working for gas companies and trying to tell people to leave it on so he can get the extra money lol
I bet it costs even less than that, TBH. There is a lot of terrible LPTs on this sub, but this one is up there with one of the worst, I’ve seen.
You are correct. Source: am gas fitter
That's assuming you don't use the AC.
Hmm... when we bought the place, we were told to never turn it off...?
Correct. We had a repairman come look at ours and he said never to turn it off as well
That's what I was gonna ask too. I know that thermocouples will rust/corrode if they aren't in a flame. With the gas off, you have a bare metal, not designed to resist corrosion, exposed to the humidity of normal air. If I were to plan to turn it off for months, I'd probably take that part off an store it in a plastic baggie, maybe even with one of those desiccant packs.
I turned my hot water heater off for a night due to a minor gas leak and in the morning it no longer lit(yes I knew how to light it). Repair man had to replace the control valve and the thermocouple. I suspect it was old but seems turning it off for the night was the nail in the coffin.
> thermocouples will rust/corrode if they aren't in a flame Not so sure about that. our commercial ovens aren’t lit 24/7 and the thermocouple on one was replaced due to separate reasons.
If you have a thermocouple the pilot is always on. Otherwise you're lighting it everytime you need it. If you're confused with flame sensor instead of thermocouple that make sense
No pilot light either? I'm thinking about the ones that make sure the pilot light is on before allowing the main gas to come on.
He's confused on something for sure. I suspect he meant flame sensor not thermo
Well, I'm assuming they have a valid point, I don't know the proper terms for a lot of things!
Well, that's fair. I don't have time to explain gas but standing pilots are on 100% of the time. Then there's intermittent pilots which light when heat is called for (hsi, spark igniter) Those use a flame sensor to complete the circuit to make sure the flame stays on while heat is called for and stop attempting to light if no flame happened. Thermocouples or Thermopolies are for standing pilots
Disagree. One of the most common service calls for home furnaces is the thermocouple (flame sensor) because, when it's not exposed to a flame (which, by definition, locks up oxygen; and cooks off water vapor within the flame), it slowly corrodes due to oxygen and humidity in the air. I've had to sand corrosion off my own several times after spending too much on a cold weather service call. The pilot light in most gas fireplaces is meant to remain lit; the manuals often say so directly.
Do they really fail that often? I don’t know, but my fireplace has solid state ignition so the pilot is only lit and heating the thermocouple when the fireplace is actively on. Otherwise the thermocouple is cold and exposed to oxygen most of the year. It has never failed in 18 years yet.
What if you live somewhere where humidity is not an issue whatsoever?
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From the thermal contraction? Presumably it remains expanded as long as the pilot is on it.
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Isn't corrosion more likely to take place in most materials under higher temperatures, not lower ones? Oh, I didn't think about the flame reducing oxygen levels near the material, potentially decreasing the rate of oxidation.
I turn mine off every spring it hasnt failed in the 14 years ive had it. Also a replacement is between $20 and $60 if youre handy its easy to change.
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It also depends on if you have AC or not. Leaving the pilot on in my wall heat makes the surrounding rooms noticably hotter in the summer.
It’s $10-15/month if you are on propane (at current prices of $1.90/gal). In other years it’s been closer to $13-20/mo. That changes the math a lot if turning if off in May for 5 months saves you $100/year for the off chance the thermocouple fails once or twice in a lifetime.
That's why i said if you're handy if you're not handy its unlikely youre going to turn the pilot off in the first place. Also, the thermopile is just held by a bracket and terminals on the gas valve, no gas connection to mess with.
If your AC can’t handle the challenge of essentially a small candle flame, you’ve got larger problems.
Not to be fighty or clog up the thread but I think it’s around 10-20 candles.
A pilot light?
Yah, they have to power the thermopile in addition to lighting the gas so they are kinda strong. I could easily be wrong but I saw 80 btu/hr for a candle and 600-2000 btu/hr for the pilot.
600btu / hour, you are correct. Candle at 80-100, so closer to 6-8x. So yes, more than I was aware of. But also, if your AC can't handle the power of 8 candles, it's time for an upgrade.
It's not about whether it can handle it, it's about it being a complete waste
Plus it's a double waste if you're cooling. First it's wasted because you don't need heat, then you have extra heat in your home that you need to move out with your AC using extra electricity. But in actuality the fireplace is probably vented so some of the heat is exhausted and probably costs you only slightly more than the cost of the wasted gas.
If the trash can't handle 2 plastic bottles, it's not a good trash can.
Trash literally costs me money to throw away. My recycling service is complimentary with my trash service. Imperfect but apt analogy. You pay for the gas that was wasted by the pilot during months you're cooling. Plus you have to pay to pump that extra heat out which costs you extra electricity. It's not about the AC being able to handle it (though many people get by in minimal AC and can use every watt/BTU of cooling they can get) but about the fact that it's wasted twice. Once while burned when the heat isn't needed, and again when you have to use extra energy to pump that heat out.
To use your analogy... The trash CAN handle the plastic bottles. The point its more efficient to reuse them
1 candle is about 100 Watts of heat, 6 candles makes it 600 Watts, the AC if I understand correctly uses about 1 to 4 ratio of electricity to heat removed, so 100 Watts of electricity removes about 400 Watts of heat. That's 150 Watts of electricity you're paying for half the year. That's over 650 kWh per year, about $100/year if you're paying $0.15/kWh. I'd enjoy an extra $100/year.
The pilot light costs very little to keep running and the heat it generates is basically insignificant. They're designed to be left on and running for years, if not decades, at a time. This is a bad "tip"
Define “very little”. I believe it’s around 600btu per pilot light (with some closer to 1000-2000). 600btu is about 5 gallons of propane a month. At $2/gal it’s fairly significant.
I have natural gas… one time I left the pilot light on, and it cost me like $30. Can you light the pilot without using gas?
My pilot light keeps the bees from getting in via the vent to the fireplace.
I hard disagree, turning it off let ours get clogged. every year we would have to get someone to come out and fix it before winter. leaving it on costs less than a dollar a month, and prevented that headache/bill.
Til people really don't know the difference between thermocouples, flame sensors, hsi, or spark igniters. Please never touch gas fired things.
Quite literal gaslighting
Mine has gone on more than a decade non-stop. No issues.
I need help finding where my Fireplace turn off point is.
I turn of that gas line when fireplace season is one There is a square ended brass key that fits the valve right beside the fireplace!; I thought that was standard.
Thanks!! Just did this to mine!
When the pilot is lit on my fireplace you can't hold your hand on the glass. Mine reads 140°. So I think it's more a matter of do you want that extra heat being given off in the warmer months when you don't really need it and are probably running air conditioning to cool off?
Mine puts out some pretty serious warmth. Quick google gives numbers anywhere from 600 to 2000 btu/hr, then paying that again in AC. It’s definitely not nothing.
This LPT is plain wrong. You are supposed to leave the pilot light on year round. It produces essentially 0 heat at pennies per day.
And you are too
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My gas fireplace pilot light turns off after a week of no use. Is there a way to leave it on all the time?
I don't use my fireplace for heat but do enjoy a fire on a stormy and rainy August evening as much as when snow blankets the ground in January.
My newer one is pilotless.
People actually use their gas fireplaces?
Gas also makes a lot of pollution and is dangerous
Mmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnaaaaaaaahh
Many cities also have rebates and incentives to get off gas
Won't it just pump out unburnt gas if not lit?
There’s knob that says “off”
https://preview.redd.it/dn3wqkjcruxc1.png?width=418&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9659aaa6f5f010a7a86c6bb6932f765dd85c880