Two or three times in the nearly four years we've lived in this house
I've had to relight the pilot in our gas water heater -- including this
morning when we realized that our water was cold.

This afternoon I went into the utility/furnace room to get something and
was greeted by a strong smell of gas -- and of course the pilot was out
again.

Is it possible that this was caused by running the attic fan to get some
air circulating in the attic while I did some work up there -- that the
fan was sucking so much air down the water-heater chimney that it blew
the flame out? The fan is mounted in the ceiling blowing air out of the
house into the roof space -- and in this case out through the access
hatch (in the garage) which was open. I didn't have any windows or doors
open at the time.

Perce