A cold shower is no fun. Especially first thing in the morning. A few weeks ago it happened to me. The pilot light must have gone out on my water heater, I thought–or at least I hoped, because that’s easy to fix and I imagined having to replace my water heater! Luckily, that’s all it was.

Great, but just how do I re-light it? I know it’s pretty simple but messing with natural gas doesn’t seem like the safest activity. I read the instructions that came with my water heater and it seemed more complicated than I remembered. I had never had to light the pilot in this house, although I have done it before on other water heaters. I’m more of a visual learner, so I thought I’d check out Youtube and see if there were any videos that would make me feel more comfortable lighting the pilot. I certainly didn’t want to blow up my house (or even just blow up myself!)

I was in luck. I found a great tutorial video that walked me through everything. I found a couple others that were pretty helpful too. I followed the guidelines set forth in my owner’s manual with the knowledge that I had from seeing someone do it in the videos and it was a piece of cake.

I thought that my experience would make a great how-to article, so I wrote one. It combines what I learned in the videos, other research, and my own experience. Check out my article on how to light a pilot light on a gas water heaterpilot light so if it happens to you, you can take care of the problem without having to research it on your own!