Pilot light off in summer?

[F Murtz]

Crap, show the figures.

[F Murtz]

OOPS not jet,Just remembered the cases I used to see, burner holes

[harryagain]

It struck me it would cost a lot of gas over the year (and from what I've read it's anything from ?25 to ?90 a year).

Then I found this! "With the pilot off, there are still trace amounts of gas molecules in the burner and pilot tubes of your fireplace. The gas companies add a chemical called Mercaptan to the gas which gives it that lovely odor we all know. Spiders are attracted to the smell of the Mercaptan and will sometimes build webs in the pilot and burner tubes when the flow of gas is off. So when you go to turn on your fireplace in the early fall or late summer, it will not work, and you will have to call you local installer to come service the unit. This will cost money."

Bollix. The reason for turning the pilot off is to save gas and to prolong the life of the thermcouple.

[harryagain]

None, they are all condensing. This means there has to be a fan as the combustion products have no buoynacy. This means there has to be post and pre firing purges.

This mens there can be no pilot light.

[harryagain]

Your heater plugs in your diesel ony work for a few seconds prior to starting a cold engine. There is no spark either. They do not ignite the fuel shit-fer-brains.

Conditions in a car engine and a gas boiler are totally unrelated.

[harryagain]

Glow plugs vapourise the fuel in the inlet manifold to make starting easier when cold.

>

[Adrian]

"A few years ago"? I'd suggest it was a lot longer than that, (at least!) nearer twenty years than ten since boilers had pilots routinely.

Sure, there'll be a reasonably large number still in use - but it'll be a very small percentage of all boilers, and shrinking rapidly.

[charles]

so, you turn the pilot light off to save gas and, as a result, heat your water by electricity which costs far more than gas - so you end up paying more in your energy bill. Logical - no.

[DICEGEORGE]

I turned the boiler off in an empty bungalow over the summer but then it wo uldn't light in the summer and had to pay an expert £45ish to come out an d fiddle with it to get it going. something to do with the air diaphragm. W ould have been cheaper to leave it on, I think it fires every 24 hours to k eep things unfrozen.

[g]

[Adrian]

No, they don't.

Glow plugs aren't in the inlet manifold, they're in the combustion chamber. Diesel fuel isn't injected into the inlet manifold, it's injected directly into into the cylinder or - on older indirect injection engines

- into pre-ignition chambers. Diesel fuel is massively vaporised by the injectors, at a pressure of tens of thousands of psi. Even cold. Diesel fuel is IGNITED by combustion pressure alone and, when cold, that needs a bit of warmth to help it get started.

THAT's what glow plugs do.

I would suggest you stick to expounding on subjects you understand, but you'd probably be silent.

[polygonum]

Not true.

[Farmer Giles]

Nonsense.

[Uncle Peter]

I believe you are correct. I thought they warmed the diesel to make it thinner, so the INJECTORS could vapourise it.

[Uncle Peter]

No, not all boilers are condensing. My neighbour just had a new boiler installed, and avoided a condensing one because he'd heard that they're unreliable.

[Uncle Peter]

I don't heat water. I think that's a very wasteful and stupid idea (and= I'm not even a treehugging-greenhouse-effect-believing moron).

-- =

Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat [Y/N]?

[Uncle Peter]

Trouble is when it won't bloody light. Every time I've had it off for a= while, it takes ages to get it going.

-- =

A can of diet coke floats in water, but a can of regular coke sinks.

[Farmer Giles]

No, the glow plugs do their work AFTER the fuel has been vapourised and injected into the combusion chamber.

[charles]

Probably because the feed pipe get full of air. At least that's what I worked out.

[Uncle Peter]

e:

Yes, it does have a ridiculously long feed pipe. The valve should be cl= ose to the pilot.

-- =

Anybody who claims that marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition doesn't kn= ow a damned thing about women or fractions.

[Uncle Peter]

I see, so there's nothing in the average car diesel engine to combat very cold ambient temperatures. You'd think they could have a diesel pipe heater.