How much does a standing pilot light cost per month?
A standing pilot burns roughly 600 to 1,000 BTU per hour around the clock, which adds up to a few therms of natural gas — or several gallons of propane — over a month. Multiply by the per-therm or per-gallon rate on your own bill for the dollar figure. It's a small line item on natural gas, and more noticeable on propane.
Doing the math on your own bill
A pilot is a tiny flame, but it never takes a day off. As a rule of thumb it burns roughly 600 to 1,000 BTU an hour; split the difference and a 30-day month works out to around half a million BTU — about five therms of natural gas, or five to six gallons of propane. Find the per-therm rate on your gas bill or your last per-gallon propane price and multiply. That's also why this question lands differently out in Fairview, Candler, and Brevard than it does on the Asheville and Hendersonville mains — propane costs more per unit of heat, so the same little flame is a bigger line item in propane country.
When the pilot is doing a job worth paying for
Before you write the pilot off as waste, know what kind of system you have. On a millivolt fireplace — like the Valor H5 we sell specifically for its zero-electricity operation — the pilot isn't just a starter; it generates the power that runs the gas valve itself. No blower, no circuit board, no wall plug. That's the design that kept throwing warmth through Helene's multi-day outages while everything with a cord went dark. On a millivolt unit, those few therms a month are cheap insurance for the week the grid goes down.
The no-pilot alternative
Most newer gas fireplaces skip the standing pilot entirely. Electronic intermittent-pilot ignition — IntelliFire on the Heat & Glo, Heatilator, and Majestic units in our showroom — sparks the pilot only when you call for flame, so the around-the-clock cost drops to zero. Napoleon pairs electronic ignition with battery backup, so you keep outage capability too. If you're shopping new, you can have the savings and the resilience at the same time. If you're deciding what to do with the pilot you already have, call (828) 545-0525 and we'll tell you which system you own and what it's costing you.
Related questions
- Should I turn my pilot light off in the summer to save money?
- How much money does electronic (intermittent pilot) ignition save compared to a standing pilot?
- How much does it cost to run a gas fireplace per hour?
- How much will a gas fireplace add to my monthly gas bill?
- What's the total annual cost of owning a gas fireplace — fuel, pilot, and service?
- How much does a gas fireplace cost installed?
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