On the first day our recent 4 day trip, when I went to
light the water heater, I thought that it would not
light. Actually what was happening was that the flame looked to be only and 1/8" long and I didn't see it at first. I finally got the main burner to come on and we had hot water. Probably, just holding my lighter to the thermocouple got it hot enough. Next morning, I noticed it was out again. I think the pilot is losing it's flame when the main burner comes on. Again, the next few days it happened again but finally the last day, the water was still hot the next morning.
Never had this problem before and I thought the pilot flame was much bigger (maybe several shoots of 1/4" to 1/2" long?). Does my pilot need cleaning and how do you do that? Years ago, my pilot of my home
furnace needed to be cleaned and I used a toothbrush and blew it out but I'm not sure about this one. Does the pilot tube come loose from the body to allow cleaning or just bend a brush and hit the end or what? Thanks for any help.