Another water heater question.
 

Recently left the house on a 10 day mission.

Turned the water heater control to 'pilot'.

Came back 10 days later to water as hot as ever. Restored control to normal spot. Burner immediately came on, ran for 10 minutes, shut off, as normal. Could the pilot (propane) alone have kept the water hot? I normally keep the temp control to pretty minumum, as shower hot is as hot as it needs to be.

Have entered phase two of the question/research. Returned switch to 'pilot' today, will use hot water as usual, and see if cold ever emerges.

Well water is from Lassen snowmelt, enters house at 42F this time of year, ambient outside is 100F days, 70F nights. 50 gallon heater is in manufactured R22 insulated house interior back porch, with a blanket.

Yes. Esp w/o water flow.

Those things are heavily insulated, they could stay warm that long with out the pilot light with no water flow.

Mine does the same thing. I do however show about a 25% decrease in the gas bill when I am out of town for a week. Something is going on.

Control in 'pilot' position for two days now. Showers in morning are plenty warm. Tomorrow, after showers, will run dishwasher and see how that does, then laundry. I suspect the showers are OK, but the other 'high stress' stuff will exhaust the hot water.