Ever cook with a gas stove? How about a gas grill?  I have used both, and there is one noticeable difference in the way that these two cooking appliances are lit at the time of ignition of the natural gas that makes me cringe.

So what am I talking about?

Not for all gas stoves and ovens, but for the great majority of them, they are lit by the pilot light, which is just a small flame that remains lit all of the time, burning a small amount of gas at all hours of the day.

I cringe at those lit using a pilot light instead of an electrical spark, because that flame burns gas constantly.

As an aside, if you’re a gas stove user, you know that if your pilot light goes out, you are likely to smell the natural gas in your home.  Furthermore, if you don’t have another pilot light somewhere else to burn off some of that gas, and it is allowed to continue to build up in your home, you might eventually get an explosion like one seen in the Ed Norton character’s apartment in Fight Club. Or at least that’s what we see happen in the movie (see video at the end of this article).

But how much gas is actually burned by a pilot light?  Well, I did not know that particular figure, so I did some research.  I had very little success finding concrete numbers, but that’s mostly because that would vary according to many conditions and by individual appliance.  But to give you an idea, according to Wikipedia:

In domestic heating systems with pilot lights it has been estimated that on average half the total energy usage is from the pilot light, each pilot light using from 240–500 W of gas (8–16 GJ/year).

The Wisconsin Public Service Corporation provides this online calculator to estimate how much gas your  pilot lights are using, as an option among all of the other possible gas burners in your home.  You may be using a great deal of gas up every day, every year, with each passing gas bill, in large part to pilot lights.

So, what can I do about my own situation?

A much better way is to have an electrical ignition, like the ones typically found on most gas grills.  It’s also available on some gas stoves.  Gas is energy-intensive to extract, it releases some carbon dioxide, and it costs you money to burn!  It would be worth one’s while to buy a gas stove with electrical ignition the next time you buy one (or opt for electric!).

Cooking is energy-intensive, but as our economy hopefully makes the move toward renewable electricity sources, electrical appliances will show their worth even more, pilot light aside.  In short, Our pilot lights are just not necessary.

Also, as noted on the Ideal Bite, you can also save by turning off your pilot lights for gas fireplaces or heaters for those months during which you are not using those appliances.

Just be sure to also shut off the gas supply to those appliances for those times, and do some reading or talk to your gas supplier if you have questions or concerns about how to do this safely.  Get informed first, then tend to the problem.  If at any time, you smell gas, you should stop, get of out the house, and call your gas supplier for instruction.

And, just for fun, here’s that scene from Fight Club – I love the fly-through graphics:

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