Is it worth turning the pilot light off?

Question

June to August the central heating will not be on. The run from the hot water tank to the hot taps is so long and poorly insulated that you can die of boredom waiting for hot water to come through so we don't use the hot water tank much, and don't heat it at all in the summer. [Due to be replaced by a combi and the number of things to do higher up the list than lifting all the carpets and floorboards to insulate the hot water pipes is quite large.]

So assuming we aren't going to fire up the boiler for 2-3 months, is it worth turning off the pilot light? Will it save much gas? Are we likely to have problems relighting in 3 months time? [On the basis that things that are designed to be on all the time sometimes get grumpy if they are turned off.]

Cheers

Dave R

NT · Accepted Answer

ISTR a pilot light uses about 4% of the gas consumed.NT

Chris J Dixon · Answer

This has been discussed over the years.I used to use my immersion heater on E7 in the summer. I had always logged my power usage fortnightly.  During thesummer no gas consumption was registered, until a new electronicmeter was fitted.  I then was using about 200 kWh per month onthe pilot light alone, so I changed to shutting it down for thesummer.The old meter must have had so much leakage that it couldn'tregister very low flow.It can sometimes be a bit tedious getting rid of all the air inthe pipe so that the pilot will re-light, but otherwise it shouldbe fine.Chris

David WE Roberts · Answer

Thanks.Turned it off despite the best effforts of a previous service engineer who stuck his 'date of service' sticker over the instructions.Which will not peel off without taking all the instructions with it.A fine case of negative advertising - he won't be getting any repeat business from me!Deduced the sequence from the partly visible bits, thankfully.You do realise that this means we will have an unseasonal cold snap with frost and snow so I have to light it again.CheersDave R

Spamlet · Answer

If the boiler is of the type where a thermocouple sits in the flame to hold the pilot supply on, you may find that once this has cooled down, it won't want to relight and you need a new thermocouple. This was a regular start of winter event with our old Baxi.

S

newshound · Answer

280 watts, that's quite some pilot light

David WE Roberts · Answer

Thank you for that kind thought.A little late in the day, perhaps, but effective none the less ;-)

Andrew Gabriel · Answer

Not really. 250W is pretty normal for a gas pilot light.

Is it worth turning the pilot light off?

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