Furnace Pilot Light Goes Out - A Mystery Solved

This week was the first time I had to turn the heat on. All last winter the pilot light on the furnace kept going out. Last week was no different. I was determined to not deal with this problem anymore. It’s not like I haven’t tried hard to solve it. We’ve had a furnace guy come out several times. He cleaned out the furnace the first time. Then he cleaned it out again. When that didn’t work, he replaced the blower, but still scratched his head. He scratched it even more when that didn’t work.

I realized that whenever the furnace is on, you can feel air blowing up the stairs leading to the basement where it’s located. We’re talking hurricane winds! I also noticed that the previous owner of the house managed to seal all the windows in the basement very tightly, placing silicone in every crevice he could find. Could the pilot light not be getting enough air to remain on?

To test my theory, I removed the door to the furnace and left it overnight. Perhaps it would allow more air to flow. It worked! I tested again for another night. Again, the pilot light did not go out. How simple is that? The flame doesn’t remain because of a lack of air flow. I wasn’t willing to leave the door off my furnace forever though. That would be dangerous. This time I left the basement door open. Perhaps more air would flow to the basement and allow the furnace to get more air. Success again!

For a year I suffered with this problem. None of the information on the Internet that I found even suggested this simple fix. Another classic case of troubleshooting the big stuff before the small stuff.