Never noticed how much the gas bill jumps just from pilot light season

Started by Tom Brennan · · 1 reply
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#1
Twenty five seasons of this and it still caught me off guard. Went through last month's statement doing the binder entries and the gas usage crept up before I even fired the heater for real swimming, just the pilot and standby draw on the Raypak sitting there waiting for Memorial Day. Never bothered pricing it out before, always just paid the bill and moved on. This year I actually did the math against last September's numbers and it is not nothing over a full season, especially with how gas prices have moved around here.

Makes me think about killing the pilot entirely during the shoulder weeks before opening and just relighting it third week of April when I actually open, but twenty five years of muscle memory says leave it be so nothing surprises me at start up. Anybody actually shut theirs down between seasons or is that asking for trouble.

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#2
Down here we don't run standing pilot Raypaks much anymore, most of my customers with newer units have electronic ignition so this doesn't even come up, but the older millivolt ones sitting on pilot all shoulder season is real money, you're not crazy for noticing it.

Shutting it down between seasons is fine, just means somebody has to relight it and check the flame sensor when you fire back up, seen it a hundred times where a pilot sat off all winter and the thermocouple was slow to catch the first try. Not trouble, just don't assume it lights first pull in April.