Gas Fireplace Repair in Deptford, NJ

Pilot lights, then dies the moment you release the knob

That symptom is nearly always the millivolt circuit. A thermocouple or thermopile heats in the pilot flame and generates its own small voltage. Age and soot drop that output. So does a lazy pilot flame. We read it under load with a meter, not by guessing. Sometimes the fault is upstream instead. A corroded wall switch or chewed thermostat wire causes it. So can a gas valve that no longer holds. Replacing a thermopile that tests fine wastes your money.

Spiders are a real cause here. They spin webs inside pilot orifices during warm months, and the fireplace comes back in October with a weak yellow pilot. Cleaning the orifice and pilot hood fixes it.

Delaware Valley humidity is the other quiet problem. Burner pans and prefab firebox steel rust year-round. Dampers do too, especially in units that sit idle all summer. On vent-free log sets retrofitted into old masonry fireboxes, that moisture is partly self-inflicted. Combustion water vapor goes into the room and the flue.

Vented log sets need the damper clamped open. We check that, check clearance of logs to the burner ports, and look at whether the flue was ever relined after a conversion. Soot on a gas log means something is wrong, not normal.