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From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: pilot light out?
Message-ID: <298@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Mar-85 19:31:52 EST
Article-I.D.: mtxinu.298
Posted: Sun Mar  3 19:31:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 05:52:29 EST
References: <767@amdcad.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley, CA
Lines: 22

> My heater hasn't been working all week. I finally looked at it
> and discovered the pilot light was out. Lighting it restored
> normal function.
> 
> 1) How could this happen? Would a power failure have anything to
> do with it?

It's possible that a power failure did it, but I don't think so.  All
of the gas-fired heaters I know of use electricity only to control
the main valve (via the thermostat) and to run fans.  Maybe a gas
outage?  That's *very* unlikely, since the gas companies are quite
careful not to restart flow when valves might be open.

> 2) How did it know the pilot was out?

There's a valve operated by the heat of the pilot.  If there's no
pilot, then the valve closes and cuts off the entire gas supply.
So far as I know, this is an entirely mechanical setup.

-- 
Ed Gould		    mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA  94710  USA
{ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed   +1 415 644 0146