I wanted to find out how much energy is lost to the gas pilot on older hot water and heating systems that use this to ignite the main burner, so contacted all the major manufacturers. Only Rinnai had the courtesy to reply, and whilst they only have a couple models that still use a gas pilot it's astounding how much energy the pilot uses. Even the guy who called with the information was surprised - it's around 21MJ a day.
That's nearly 6kWh equivalent.
As one poster pointed out recently - it's enough to actually heat the storage tank on its own.
Compared to electronic igniters that run at about 1Wh the cost difference is remarkable, and even allowing for the extra cost of running a new power point over to a gas HWS the payback period is less than a year.
Thankfully the market no longer supplies many pilot based systems.
Gas pilot consumption
(2 posts) (2 voices)-
alfresco24
MemberPosted Friday 9 Nov 2012 @ 12:05:51 am from IP # -
johnmath
MemberOur Rinnai instantaneous made in Japan has a (presumably) efficient switchmode supply, but only rated for 100 Vac input. For export, they slap an E-core transformer in to drop our 240 volts to 100 volts. This transformer dissipates about 3.5 watts in core losses even under no load.
I was lucky to find a suitable replacement toroidal transformer with 100 volt and 240 volt windings in the surplus bin at Altronics for $10 to replace the inefficient E-core with, which has reduced the unit's standby wastage by 50% to around 3 - 4 watts (depending if the keypads are left on or not). The standby power is currently costing me around $14 per year.
Posted Friday 9 Nov 2012 @ 1:35:19 am from IP #