Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Any Heating experts out there?

I was looking at my natural gas bill the other day. I have a whole house instant water heater, natural gas furnace and natural gas stove. The water heater and furnace are high effeciency, electronic start units, the stove still has pilot lights (3 of them).

June, July and August I've used between 5 and 8 therms per month for the past 3 years.

I'm trying to figure out how much less I'd use if I were to switch the stove to an electronic start stove.

I've seen figures where it says that pilots use between 600 to 900 BTU's an hour. That doesn't compute if I've got 3 of them burning 24/7 for a month and only use 5-8 therms/mo. in the whole house. 100,000 BTu in a therm.

Does anybody know for sure?

Dude, that's a seriously messed up set of questions. It's like a word problem on steroids. A whole lot of steroids.

O.K. I'll distill it for ya. How many BTU does a typical natural gas pilot light give off (or consume - I don't know how it's worded) in a 30 day month if it stays burning 24/7?

Here is the best I can do for you, bro! (Thank goodness for Google!)

Pilot Light 1

Pilot Light 2

Pilot Light 3

Pilot Light 4 (This one looks like it has some good real life answers)

Pilot Light 5

It looks like these links ought to be good for a little reading and should get you in the ballpark of what you're looking for.

Todd, I read most of "Pilot Light #4" - didn't understand a lot of it, but did
make me appreciate this forum even more after seeing how hostile some of them
got as a result of their discussion. Those guys need to lighten up!!

Thanks guys. I had found most of those sites already. I didn't find #4, so I read it.

In the next few weeks I'll be out of town for a few days, so I can see how much the meter moves without any gas usage in the house other than the pilot lights on the stove. (Providing the meter accurate enough to measure that little bit of gas usage.)

It seemed like #4 was at least giving some decent personal experiences with BTU's for various appliances, so I thought that might at least give you a decent idea of expected burn rates. What about just calling the tech support lines for the manufacturers of each appliance you are trying to gauge and see what they tell you as far as BTU's consumed? They'd surely know that info.

Kind of funny, isn't it, how other forums can get seemingly out of control! Of course, if it wasn't for our tight standards here, guys like JHAP, Catmandoo, and others would probably turn this place into a constant Irish donnybrook!