How Much Propane Does Pilot Light Use

Electronic ignition systems have replaced airplane pilot lights for one elementary reason:

Pilot lights are expensive to run. Running pilot calorie-free 24/vii tin result in 5,000+ cubic feet of natural gas or 50+ gallons of propane being used every twelvemonth.

How much gas does a pilot light use?

Quite a lot, actually. According to Wikipedia, "In domestic heating systems with pilot lights, it has been estimated that half of the total energy usage is from the pilot light". We used rule of thumb approximations to calculate how much gas do airplane pilot lights use per hour, per 24-hour interval, per month, and per year.

3 Quick outtakes (all calculations are summarized in the finish):

Running a pilot light for ane hour costs nigh 1 cent (0.62 cent/hour for natural gas and 1.64 cent/hour for propane).
Monthly costs of running a airplane pilot light range from $iv.49/month (natural gas) to $11.34/month (propane).
Airplane pilot lights that run on propane are about 2 times more than expensive to run than pilot lights running on natural gas (that's because natural gas is cheaper per produced BTU – British Thermal Unit).

do all furnaces have pilot lights — Pilot low-cal of the gas furnace. Keeping this flame running costs most $0.01/h. That can result in a more $100/twelvemonth propane beak.

Here'due south the deal about airplane pilot lights:

You lot won't find them in new fireplaces, furnaces, space heaters, water heaters, gas logs, so on. Nonetheless, if you have a furnace or a fireplace that was manufactured before 2010, it will likely apply a pilot light for ignition.

It is important to empathize exactly how much does it cost to keep the pilot light on the fireplace, furnace, and then on. You lot want to know how much gas (natural gas or propane) you're wasting, and you want to know how many dollars go down the drain every twelvemonth for running airplane pilot light.

Let'southward start past calculating how much does natural gas or propane does a pilot light use per hour, month, and year. After that, we will calculate how much that amount of gas costs per 60 minutes, day, month, and yr.

Notation: You will find the summarized information on how much gas practice pilot lights use (in gallons and US dollars) at the end of this commodity:

How Much Natural Gas Or Propane Does Airplane pilot Light Utilize?
- Natural Gas Expenditure (Up To Over 5,000 Cubic Feet Per Year)
- Propane Expenditure (Up To 50+ Gallons Per Year)

Toll Of Running A Pilot Lite (Natural Gas And Propane)
How Much Does It Cost To Run A Pilot Light? (Summarized Table)
- - - Related posts:

How Much Natural Gas Or Propane Does Pilot Lite Use?

To summate what quantity of gas does a pilot light use, we have to kickoff determine how much energy does running such a pilot light use.

According to Wikipedia, a pilot calorie-free tin can apply between "70 and 500 watts of gas power". If we use watt to BTU converter, we get that the actual use is between 239 BTU and 1,706 BTU per 60 minutes. Those a big numbers and a big range. A standard airplane pilot light uses about 600 BTU worth of gas every hour.

At present, allow's say that we run a pilot calorie-free for 1 hour. That consumes 600 BTU of free energy. All that energy had to come up from gas; how much did nosotros burn down to go on the airplane pilot low-cal running? We will calculate this for both natural gas and propane.

Natural Gas Expenditure (Up To Over 5,000 Cubic Feet Per Year)

Natural Gas: Co-ordinate to the Usa Free energy Information Administration, burning 1 cubic foot of natural gas will produce 1,037 BTU. And so we use less than one cubic foot; here'southward how much exactly:

Natural Gas = 600 BTU (1h of pilot light running) / 1,037 BTU = 0.579 Cubic Anxiety Per Hr

That ways that running a standard pilot lite not-cease volition eat:

0.579 cubic feet of natural gas per hour.
13.90 cubic anxiety of natural gas per day.
416.88 cubic anxiety of natural gas per month.
5002.56 cubic feet of natural gas per twelvemonth.

That'southward quite a big number. If you want to run a single standard pilot light for a whole year, you burn more than five,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

Earlier we wait at how much this corporeality of natural gas costs, let'southward summate the expenditure for propane-powered heating systems too:

Propane Expenditure (Up To fifty+ Gallons Per Year)

Propane airplane pilot light expenditure is measured in gallons. According to the United states EIA, one gallon of propane is equal to 91,452 BTU. Nosotros know that a standard airplane pilot low-cal uses almost 600 BTU of free energy every hour.

Here's how many gallons of propane does a pilot light uses:

Propane = 600 BTU (1h of airplane pilot light running) / 91,452 BTU = 0.00656 Gallons Per Hour

That doesn't sound a lot, right? Well, if yous keep a pilot light on 24/seven, it will spend:

0.00656 gallons of propane per hour.
0.157 gallons of propane per day.
four.723 gallons of propane per month.
56.678 gallons of propane per year.

That'southward quite a lot. If you keep a standard pilot light on all the fourth dimension, it will consume more 50 gallons of propane per year.

At present, cubic feet of natural gas and gallons of propane matter, simply what most of u.s.a. will empathise the best are dollars. Let'due south look at how much does running a airplane pilot light actually costs:

Cost Of Running A Airplane pilot Light (Natural Gas And Propane)

We know much natural gas and propane does a pilot calorie-free waste per hr, twenty-four hour period, month, and year. To calculate how much does that corporeality of gas costs, we need to know two things:

Price of natural gas. Price in 2020 was $10.78 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas (Source: EIA). That ways that 1 cubic pes of natural gas costs virtually $0.01078 (a piddling more 1 cent per cubic foot).
Toll of propane. Cost in 2021 was around $2.50 per gallon (Source: Eia).

Nosotros can get how much propane does a pilot calorie-free apply or natural gas just by multiplying the quantity of gas consumed by airplane pilot calorie-free with the cost of that gas similar this:

Cost Of Running Pilot Light = Gas Quantity Consumed × Price Of Gas

Instance: Permit's say that we take a fireplace with a pilot light. How much does it cost to keep the pilot light on the fireplace per calendar month? Nosotros have calculated that a standard airplane pilot low-cal uses 416.88 cubic feet of natural gas or 4.723 gallons of propane per month.

Let's calculate how much practise both of these gas consumptions cost:

Cost (Natural Gas) = 416.88 cubic feet × $0.01078 = $4.49/calendar month

Allow'due south exercise the aforementioned calculation for propane:

Toll (Propane) = four.723 gallons × $ii.50 = $11.34/month

Here we have information technology: Information technology costs a niggling less than $5/month worth of natural gas to keep the pilot light running. If our pilot light is powered past propane, nosotros volition use a little more than $10/month to keep it running not-stop.

Nosotros have calculated the costs per hour, day, month, and year for a standard pilot light and summarized them in this tabular array:

How Much Does Information technology Toll To Run A Airplane pilot Light? (Summarized Table)

Here is the total table of the estimated costs of running a pilot light not-stop. We used the current standard costs of natural gas and propane (these may vary quite a fleck as you know):

Running Time:	Natural Gas Cost	Propane Toll
Per Hr	$0.0062/hour (Less than 1 cent/hr)	$0.0164/hr (Picayune more than than 1 cent/hour)
Per Twenty-four hour period	$0.15/day	$0.39/solar day
Per Month	$4.49/month	$11.34/calendar month
Per Year	$53.93/year	$141.70/year

As you can see, the running costs of the pilot light are not enormous. Still, they are also non insignificant and should play a gene if you lot're ownership a new furnace, fireplace, h2o heater, so on.