Nat. Gas Water Htr WITHOUT Pilot Light?

15 years ago

I'm trying to find a local source for a 30-40 gallon natural gas water heater that doesn't use a pilot light. I have to replace my heater and it seems to me that it would be worth the money to go with an electronic ignition unit. Haven't done anything with water heaters in years.

A plumber quoted me a unit with a pilot light. I started looking for alternatives online. Seems like everything I see has a pilot light. I see conversion kits for $300-$500. Seems to me that if a non-pilot unit were $300-$400 more it would pay for itself easily over the life of the unit. Unless there's info I'm unaware of.

Now the problem. I'm hoping to make a decision today because I have some help to replace it, otherwise I'll have to hire it done.

Need some advice. Opinions please?

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Comments (10)

hendricus
15 years ago
The pilot light will keep the water at temperature during non-use periods without the main burner coming on. Also the pilot keeps the area around the burner warm and dry so it reduces corrosion.

IMO you're savings over the life of the unit will be close to zero. Plus you will need an electrical hook-up to operate the unit.
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pjb999
15 years ago
An interesting question as I wondered how one would deal with the pilot light question if one went to say, solar hw, understandably the cost arises, but in a situation with an alternate heat source and the tank acting as storage, it's a good question. I suppose electric would be one alternative, or on-demand with a passive storage tank would be another.
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Wish this conversation was more current. I have a vulcan range with six eyes fitted for propane. I never thought about the issue until I had it for a while. I had old timey ranges that only had pilots and it never seemed like an issue. These six eyes have large pilots that waste a lot of gas. The oven is a completely separate issue. I'm also a jack of all trades electrical engineer that has been a controls engineer and a controller board designer among other things. The post about the igniter control module is probably the most reasonable way out, but then you need a solenoid valve that must be activated to supply the gas and time out if the flame detect feedback signal is not received. Right there I'm already over anybody's head that does not have at least some of my training. That is also a point of contention for me because consumer type controllers have no source code or schematics so you can maintain the thing indefinitely. They expect you to throw it away after 5 to 10 yrs and when a controller goes out that you can no longer get (and they are ridiculously expensive if you can) typically renders an otherwise perfectly operating appliance worthless. So let say one other thing in response to the post above that defended the high price of consumer type similar stoves: You will always notice that the commercial grade are built from much heavier gauge metal and and have less custom plastic or otherwise easily damageable parts on them. Those reasons are why I wanted a commercial range. I am still on the fence of what to do. One option I have considered is use igniter modules with a solenoid valve at the oven input regulator and then I will need a user interface, the simplest being a small NEMA enclosure with some industrial push buttons and and lights. Next I need a way to control these. This falls in 3 categories: 1) a bunch of relays ('70's stle industrial control - big, cumbersome, wiring in a cabinet, but he most Neanderthal electrician that work on it, but you need to know how to design it, but it's not rocket science). 2) a PLC - (programmable logic controller) - some electricians can work on these, these days, the are reasonable price ones out there but you need the experience of design and programming - another step up from relays - however, if the PLC has an Ethernet connection and a Modbus interface, you can integrate you oven control into an overall home control system and control or monitor it from the other side of the world. 3) The next is custom design a board with a microprocessor, the advantage being that you can make the wiring minimalist, but beyond that the requirements of what you need to be able to do are so great I won't waste any time discussing it further. No one else would be able to ever work on it and your insurance company would not like it. I lamented the same issues when I designed my septic system that uses crude float switch control and ended up using a PLC for that project. The inspector passed my system and said it was the most sophisticated in the county. So I can monitor the flow of T---s from the other side of the planet....Eureka !!!! Seriously there are a lot of advantages to it, but that is way beyond the scope of this post.
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lazypup
15 years ago
The actual operating cost of a pilot flame is about $0.40 a month. I fail to see where there would be any significant savings.
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shadow700
15 years ago
The actual operating cost of a pilot flame is about $0.40 a month. I fail to see where there would be any significant savings.

For units that I have seen the manufacturer's specs, pilots burn about 800 - 100 BTUs per hour. That is approximately 1 cubic foot of natural gas.

There are 720 hours in a month, which equals 7.2 CCF of gas. For our POCO, that's about $12 / mo.

Instead of looking for a standard gas hot water heater that has an electric ignition, you could look to a power vent unit. I can't speak for all models, but I have never seen one that wasn't an electric start.
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hendricus
15 years ago
shadow700---Something isn't right here'

July '07 3CCF
Aug. '07 6CCF
Sept. '07 6CCF
Oct. '07 8CCF

This is in SW Mich. taken from the Consumers Power bill. We have a 40 gal. gas water heater with a pilot flame, only other gas appliance is the furnace. 2 person empty nester household and we vacation in the off season.

The pilot flame cannot be using 7.2 CCF per month if the water heater altogether uses less than that.
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shadow700
15 years ago
As I said, "for units that I have seen the manufacturer's specs". I can't (and don't) speak for all units out there.

The point being if you want to know how much something will / does cost you, get the specific model number / fuel cost and ask the manufacturer directly or monitor the gas meter for an hour when only the thing you want to monitor is on and extrapolate from there.
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rogerv_gw
15 years ago
It's nice to have hot water when the electric power is out. This doesn't happen a lot, but we sometimes have outages in the winter when a bad storm goes through (windy area near the ocean).

-Roger
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cynic
Original Author
15 years ago
lazypup, can you site some source for the 40Â¢/mo cost of a pilot light? Everything I see suggests 5-6 therms/mo and at $1.25/thm that's way more than 40Â¢. This is consistent with my use. I have two pilot lights (1 furnace and 1 water heater) plus water heating uses 16-18 thrms in the summertime. The latter sounds much more reasonable. This would mean an annual cost of nearly $100 to just burn a pilot light. I understand the theory of keeping things a bit drier and there would be some water heating value for maintenance but for my use that is not significant.

There just doesn't seem to be much info out there for pilotless heaters and I don't understand why. Dryers have been long since replaced with electronic ignition for the gas waste. There's no gas lights allowed anymore because of the waste. We really seem to be behind the times here.

And if my power goes out (in Minnesota) during the winter, I'm concerned about many other things before being able to take a hot shower!

I'll check into the powervent. Thanks to all of you for the input. Much appreciated.
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zl700
15 years ago
Directly from Honeywell-

"A split flame pilot light with a .012 Nat gas orifice, consumes/produces 600 to 900 BTU's an hour, depending on pressures and setting."

So a pilot light burning at 700 Btu's with a gas cost of $1.30 per Therm (Therm = 100,000 BtuÂs when the BTU content of a cubic foot of nat gas is 1000) = $0.0091 per hour, $0.2184 per day, $6.55 per month (30 days), $79.72 per year to operate the pilot.
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zl700
15 years ago
I guess being an on-demand water heater proponent myself, besides the %15-20% EF increase over tanks with standing pilot, the substantiated pilot light usage is reason alone for the nay-sayers to take a second look.
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Nat. Gas Water Htr WITHOUT Pilot Light?

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