On 09/07/07 09:10 am Water Heater Dude wrote:

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.

You have a bigger problem than the pilot going out if you are smelling
gas. When the pilot goes out the gas valve should shut down all flow
of gas to the pilot assembly. I'd get this checked before your house
explodes.


But isn't that a temperature-controlled thing? AFAIK, the pilot light
heats a sensor that signals thats it's OK to let the gas flow. If the
pilot light goes out, the sensor stays warm enough for a little while to
allow a small amount of gas to flow.

There was no smell of gas when I relit the pilot yesterday morning, so
gas is not continuing to flow the whole time.

I mentioned "a strong smell of gas", but I should point out that I have
a very sensitive nose (many years working in a chem. lab) and smell
things that others don't. (OTOH, my wife has a lousy sense of smell but
hears things that nobody else does.)

Perce