Gas Fireplace Maintenance Checklist for West Seattle Homes: Owner Tasks and the Yearly Service

Each household in the American Community Survey names the fuel it mainly heats with. Across Seattle, 32.8 percent of occupied homes answer utility gas. In the five Census ZIP code areas that take in West Seattle, the share runs from 30.5 percent in the one around Delridge to 41.9 percent in the one that includes Gatewood and Fauntleroy.

Those figures describe furnaces and boilers, not fireplaces; the survey does not count hearths of any kind. They do show that gas service reaches a large share of the peninsula's houses, and where there is a gas meter there is often a gas fireplace, an insert or a log set on the same line.

Each line names who does the task and when. Anything that involves the burner, the pilot assembly, the gas valve or the venting belongs to the technician. The owner's manual for your model takes precedence over this table wherever the two differ.

The technician's lines match what Seattle-area companies publish as the content of a tune-up. Mad Hatter Chimney Sweep lists three parts to its gas fireplace service: cleaning the burner, checking the vent, inspecting the pilot. AAA Fireplace lists cleaning of the burner and the glass, tests of the thermocouple and the thermopile, and checks of the gas valve and the venting.

The standard that CSIA quotes, NFPA 211, does not single out wood. Its yearly inspection covers three things by name: chimneys, fireplaces and vents. A gas vent can be blocked by a nest, pulled apart at a joint or corroded through without leaving a trace in the room.

The safety devices are the other reason. A thermocouple or thermopile is what shuts the gas off when the pilot goes out, and it weakens gradually. Testing it takes a meter and a few minutes. Finding out that it has failed takes a cold evening and a unit that will not stay lit, or worse, one that should have shut down and did not.

Two code points come up regularly. The 2021 Seattle Mechanical Code does not allow an unvented gas log heater in a factory-built fireplace unless that fireplace is listed for one, so not every metal firebox may receive a log set. The same chapter requires a fireplace insert to be listed, labeled and installed as its manufacturer directs, which is why we ask for the model number before a visit.

On permits, the mechanical permit SDCI issues is for heating and venting equipment being newly installed, and it leaves gas lines out; gas piping needs its own permit. The residential code's exemption list covers swapping a component when the system's original approval is unchanged. We state nothing beyond those two readings, and for a new installation we ask SDCI about the permit before any work is scheduled.

On WeatherSpark's Seattle profile, the stronger winds run from mid-October (the 15th) until April 24. The city's hazard analysis recalls what a bad one does: in December 2006 nearly half of City Light's customers (49 percent) were cut off, and the last of them waited a week for the lights to return. The same document reports deaths in King County among people who burned charcoal indoors for warmth.

Many gas fireplaces can light without household power, and many cannot. Read your manual, or ask at the service visit, and learn the answer before the first outage. If yours does run on its own, a serviced unit with a tested vent is a sound way to keep one room warm. Whatever the heat source, working carbon monoxide alarms are not optional.

Our gas fireplace service is $189 to $475, depending on the type of unit and what the visit involves. A repair that needs parts is quoted in writing before it is carried out. When gas logs sit in a masonry fireplace and the chimney itself needs looking at, the chimney inspection is $99 plus tax, an amount subtracted from the quote if you approve it.

Published prices from three companies that serve Seattle: Mad Hatter Chimney Sweep's gas service is shown at $150 to $275. AAA Fireplace, a King County company, advertises a flat $299 annual tune-up. Washington Energy Services lists a 13-point tune-up at $259 for specific brands and for units it installed, and does not serve condos or multi-family buildings.