Propane and natural gas fireplace repair in Williamsburg

A pilot that stays lit or goes out when off

Owners often ask whether the pilot should burn all the time, and owner's manuals answer it in their question tables. It depends on the system and how it is set, so neither a steady pilot nor a dark one is a fault by itself.

Some electronic systems keep the pilot lit on purpose. One insert's remote has a pilot-on setting, labeled cold climate, for that. A command system from another maker can be configured for a standing or an intermittent pilot, and in standing mode the pilot stays lit after the burner shuts off.

A standing pilot on a millivolt valve is meant to be present whenever the fireplace is in operation. Our technician confirms the design and the mode your fireplace is set to before calling anything a defect, and the estimate names that setup so the next service starts from the same facts.

A blower that will not run

The fan in a gas fireplace is a separate system from the flame. One maker's millivolt direct vent manual says the fireplace works without any electrical supply and that electricity is only needed to operate the blower. A fire that lights normally therefore says little about why the fan in your Williamsburg home is silent.

Some fans are meant to wait. Heat & Glo's remote guide explains that its fan starts after a three minute delay so the air around the unit heats first, and that on battery backup during a power outage the remote will not run the fan at all. Those are ruled out first, then the parts the fan depends on are tested in turn.

The fan repair stays its own estimate line, apart from any ignition work. That way you can see what each fault costs and approve them separately.

• Power at the receptacle that feeds the fan
• The thermostatic sensor that switches it on
• The speed control or remote fan setting
• The motor and its wiring

A wall switch that stopped working

Many gas fireplaces can be turned on from a switch on the wall. On the millivolt and electronic systems in the manuals we have read, that switch runs on low voltage. It is not a light switch, even when it looks like one.

The direct vent and natural vent manuals from one maker both warn not to connect the wall switch to a household circuit and limit the switch wire to a set length and gauge, noting that extended lengths may keep the fireplace from working properly. An insert manual adds that low voltage and household voltage cannot share the same wall box, so the two are run apart.

The switch and its wire run are tested with the checks in the maker's troubleshooting table, which isolate the switch, the wire and the valve terminals one at a time. A switch that was swapped for an ordinary light switch or tied into house wiring is written up for correction before the fireplace in your Williamsburg home is run from the wall again.

Grounding and the fireplace circuit

Any fireplace with a fan, lights or electronic ignition is also an electrical appliance. The manuals we have read require it to be wired and grounded per local codes or, where there are none, the National Electrical Code. Florida's fuel gas code adds a rule that is easy to miss. Gas piping shall not be used as a grounding electrode.

Ground matters to the ignition as well as to shock safety. An electronic ignition troubleshooting table lists poor or no system ground as a cause of a pilot that sparks but never lights, and has the ground wire on the valve wiring checked at the metal chassis. A natural vent chart from another maker notes that a poor or erratic ground may cause an occasional shutdown even when the fireplace works normally at checkout.

Inside the appliance, our technician tests the ground connections and labels wires before disconnecting any control, as the manuals direct. A fault in the house wiring is noted on the estimate for a qualified electrician.