Why Won’t My Furnace Pilot Light Stay Lit?

Do you own a gas furnace? To produce heat for your home in Currituck Mainland, NC, your furnace must ignite gas. To do so, it needs a flame. The pilot light is the source of this flame, and its failure to burn may indicate serious trouble with your heating system. Here’s why your furnace pilot light may refuse to stay lit:

Inadequate Gas Flow

To stay lit, your furnace pilot light requires a continuous supply of natural gas. Many things may conspire to prevent this gas from reaching its intended destination.

First, there might be either a blockage or a leak somewhere in the gas line. Secondly, your gas regulator or your furnace’s thermocouple may have malfunctioned, leading to restrictions in the supply of gas. HVAC service technicians can take care of these issues for you.

Soot Buildup

Soot and other kinds of debris have the potential to get into almost any part of your furnace and impede overall functioning. If debris clogs your pilot light tube or orifice, you probably won’t see any pilot light flame at all. To clean the debris away, you must request heating maintenance services.

Old Gas Furnace

Finally, your furnace may simply be too old to continue adequately carrying out its basic functions. If so, a failure to sustain its pilot light will almost certainly be far from the only problem that your furnace experiences.

Typically, a gas furnace will have a useful service life of about 15 years. After this point, the system’s parts, including many of its critical valves, its thermocouple and its pilot light orifice, may wear out and degrade.

While annual maintenance check-ups may slow down some of this degradation, they won’t completely stop it. Hence, the only way to make sure that your furnace’s pilot light won’t flicker out may be to buy a new heating system.

Without a consistently burning pilot light, you won’t be able to stay warm this winter in Currituck Mainland, NC. To quickly deal with any pilot light issues, call North Beach Services Heating and Cooling to ask for our heating services. We can repair your furnace or replace it with an energy-efficient heat pump installation.

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