Your local gas fireplace venting team in Southport

A sealed firebox that takes its air from outdoors

A direct-vent gas fireplace pulls every bit of its combustion air in from outdoors through the vent pipe, as one maker's manual puts it, and sends the exhaust back out the same route. On most units the pipe is two pipes in one, with exhaust in the smaller inner pipe and fresh air moving in the space around it.

Because the room's air plays no part in the fire, the glass front is part of the seal too. Our pros treat the cap, the pipe and the glass as one system and check all three before blaming any single part.

Finding pipe from two different makers

Mixed runs turn up after earlier repairs, when someone used whatever pipe the store had in the right diameter. The joints may lock, the cap may fit, and the run can still be outside what the fireplace was tested with.

Our specialists read the labels on each reachable section and compare them with the manual. Where a manual allows adapters between brands, it names them. Where it does not, the mismatched sections go on the estimate as replacements, and we tell you which parts of the run stayed out of view.

Room to breathe in front of the cap

A sealed fireplace pulls its combustion air in at the cap, so the space in front of the cap matters. One direct-vent manual keeps a 24 inch zone in front of the termination hood free of shrubs, garden sheds, fences, decks and utility buildings.

Yards change. A hedge fills in, a shed gets delivered, a gate goes in. Our crew measures that 24 inch zone on every sidewall vent and tells you exactly what has to move.

• Bushes and hedges
• Garden sheds and utility buildings
• Fences and gates
• Decks built after the fireplace

A natural-vent fireplace that shuts down early

When a B-vent unit runs for a while and then shuts itself off, one maker's troubleshooting table points to a blockage or restriction in the venting. The fix it gives is to remove the blockage and relight the pilot following the lighting instructions.

Finding that blockage is the real work. Our crew checks the cap, the reachable pipe and any enclosure around the top, and if nothing turns up there, the draft checks and the controls come next.

A written record of the vent

The next technician should not have to rediscover your vent. After each visit, our crew records the model, the vent type, the parts we identified, the route we could follow and what we repaired.

Keep that record with the fireplace manual. It shortens future service, answers a buyer's questions if you sell and shows whether a problem is new or has been there all along. If no record exists today, the free inspection is where it starts.