Fireplace Repair in Colorado Springs

In most homes here the gas fireplace sits unused from May to October, and the first cold evening of fall is when a pilot that hasn’t burned for months refuses to light. We repair gas fireplaces and inserts in homes across Colorado Springs, in Monument and around Fort Carson; electric and wood-burning fireplaces are on our list too.

When the pilot won’t cooperate

• It won’t light. First make sure the fireplace’s gas shutoff valve is open. After a summer off, spiders and dust like to block the pilot orifice and tube; a dead spark igniter does the same.
• It lights, then dies when you let go of the knob. The thermocouple is what holds the gas valve open, and a dirty or worn one, or one that sits outside the flame, doesn’t make enough voltage to do it.
• It goes out on windy days. A direct-vent fireplace breathes and exhausts through a cap on the outside wall or the roof. Strong west winds coming off the mountains can blow into the cap and snuff the pilot, or make the flames lift and dance. Sometimes a cap made for high-wind areas or a different vent termination is the answer; we check the cap and the clearances around it.

When the burner won’t cooperate

• Pilot on, burner off. Start with fresh batteries in the remote and the receiver. If that changes nothing, it’s usually the thermopile running weak, the wall switch or the wires to it, or the gas valve itself.
• The burner lights and goes out. Either the thermopile has weakened, the pilot flame has drifted away from it, or a safety switch picked up a venting problem and cut the gas.
• No pilot at all. Many newer fireplaces light the burner with a control module and a backup battery instead of a standing pilot. When nothing happens, the module, the batteries and the flame sensor come first.
• Soot, or a white haze on the glass. Soot means the flame is burning dirty: misplaced logs, an air shutter out of adjustment, or a burner set up for a lower elevation. A white haze is normal residue that comes off with a cleaner made for fireplace glass.

Snow and altitude

• Snow on the vent. A low wall vent buried by a drift, or iced over, starves the fireplace of air and can shut it down. Clear it after a storm, and don’t run the fireplace while it’s blocked.
• Elevation. Gas fireplaces are certified up to a certain altitude and have to be derated above it, and at about 6,000 feet Colorado Springs is above that limit for many models. One that was never adjusted burns with tall, yellow, sooty flames.

Safety

• Smell gas? Don’t switch the fireplace, the lights or any appliance on or off. Get out of the house and call your gas utility — Colorado Springs Utilities inside the city — or 911.
• Carbon monoxide. A gas fireplace burns fuel in your living room, and Colorado law calls for a CO alarm within 15 feet of every bedroom in homes that have one. Test the alarms when you light the fireplace for the season.
• Turn it off and leave it off until it’s been looked at if the glass has a crack, the flames have turned tall and yellow instead of mostly blue, soot keeps appearing, or the pilot won’t stay lit.

On every gas fireplace repair, the technician leak-tests the gas connections, checks the pilot assembly, the thermocouple or thermopile, the venting and the glass gasket, and runs the fireplace before leaving.

Electric fireplaces

Inside an electric fireplace there’s a heating element with a fan, plus a light and a small motor that make the flame effect. Flames but no heat: the element, the fan or a thermal cutout that has tripped. Heat but frozen flames: the motor or the light.

Fireplace prices are on our prices page. Heating trouble beyond the fireplace? See furnace repair.