Gas Fireplace - routine maintenance? regular repair?

[bicker]

We have a gas fireplace (light switch to ignite), and this season, for the first time, we've had trouble getting it to ignite, and once we got it to ignite, it seemed to go out on its own a few times -- at least back in October and November. In the last couple of weeks, though, we've tried twice and it ignited both times, and seemed to stay lit.

My questions are more general than specific to these specific issues, though: Is there any routine maintenance needed for such a fireplace? For example, does the electric igniter get "old" and need to be replaced "anyway" every X years?

Beyond that, who do you call for maintenance and/or repair on these things? Do normal fireplace installers handle gas?

 

[CF'er]

They need to be cleaned. You can take a hair dryer and blow them out or you can call your gas company and they will come with a stronger blower and do it. Usually the hair dryer works at first.

 

[amid chaos]

We were told that if we kept the pilot light off in the summer that relighting it can be difficult without a cleaning because of spiders....yup, the creepy, crawly kind. We keep our pilot light on year round and have never had a problem since.

 

[bicker]

Yeah we used to turn the pilot off over the summer, but we haven't done that for two years.

Spiderwebs do sound like a plausible concern.

 

[bicker]

A little more details on my situation: The fireplace lights but only if I press the little trigger thingy (which should be necessary, based on how my fireplace is designed to work, and has not been necessary for the first ten years of its operation, except to relight the pilot light when we turn it off for a season). And its been lit continually for a few hours now, without going out, so that doesn't seem to be a real problem either.

Does that confirm anything specific?