It's certainly worth the ~$100 to have a gas fireplace checked, and we'll now schedule regular maintenance late each summer before the heating season begins.
Late last winter, one of our two Carbon Monoxide detectors sounded an alarm. A friend had had a similar situation last year and he warned of the danger that CO produces in an indoor environment.
In our case, we couldn't discover what was wrong. A certain number of "beeps" meant its battery needed replacing, another number of beeps meant carbon monoxide was being recorded. But we couldn't ascertain how many beeps were occurring (before the next set of beeps started).
But there had been a strange odour when the fireplace was running...nothing we could define as a propane smell, but there was a smell nevertheless. So it probably wasn't CO, which is odourless (that's what makes it so dangerous).
We certainly weren't experiencing any of the effects of CO.
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After a few minutes, our CO detector stopped beeping, I pressed its Reset button, changed the 9-volt battery and plugged it in again. No beeping.
But that was a lesson.
So when our tank was filled by Superior Propane last week, the driver did his usual "soap test" (bubbles would indicate a leak). No bubbles occurred on the line from the tank to the fireplace...at least where it enters the house. The driver isn't responsible for doing any checks indoors.
Prior to the gas arriving, we had phoned Shepherd's Hardware in Armstrong, who supplied and installed the fireplace in our family room 20+ years ago. During that time, their installer had also installed a steel liner in the two-storey chimney that serves the family room fireplace. And all had been well during the ensuing years.
Shepherd's Hardware recommended one of the contractors who performs their installations.
Tim was punctual and professional. He took apart the fireplace while the pilot light was out, vacuumed the interior of the unit, checked connections and lit the pilot light. He then checked the exterior connections in case the gas delivery person had overlooked anything. The fireplace was lit, and within a minute or two the fan came on and warmth spilled into the room.
During this time, Tim's carbon monoxide detector was reading ZEROS...yay!
After 10 minutes the reading remained at ZEROS, and no strange odour was noticed. Tim stated that the odour we experienced last year was likely a result of some dust accumulation (after 20+ years--in my defense). But that it was NOT from carbon monoxide.
Time to replace our CO detector...
A big thanks to Tim...we'll call him every year to perform maintenance.
And give us the peace of mind we have today! Thanks Tim!
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