This is the call we take more than any other. The pilot lights, burns fine while you hold the knob in, and then dies the moment you let go. Or it stays lit for a day and is out again by morning. It is frustrating, but it is common, and the causes are well understood.
It helps to understand what is actually happening, because the fireplace is usually not malfunctioning. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Why a pilot going out is a safety feature
On a standing-pilot fireplace, the pilot flame heats a small probe sitting in it — a thermocouple, or on many units a thermopile. That probe converts the heat into a tiny electrical current. Tiny as in millivolts, which is why these are called millivolt systems. That current is what holds the gas valve open.
The clever part is that the fireplace needs no mains power at all, and it fails safe. If the pilot goes out for any reason, the current stops, and the valve shuts within seconds. No flame means no gas. That is the whole point.
So when a pilot will not stay lit, it usually means the probe is no longer generating enough current to hold the valve open — either because the probe has aged, or because the flame is no longer heating it properly.
The usual causes, roughly in order
- A worn thermocouple or thermopile. These are consumable parts. They sit in a flame for years and eventually stop producing enough output. This is the most common cause and it can sometimes even be sorted out during the diagnostic visit (depending on if we have the correct one, and how difficult it is to remove).
- A dirty or partly blocked pilot orifice. The opening the pilot gas comes through is very small. Dust, lint and corrosion narrow it, the flame gets weak or lazy, and it no longer wraps around the probe properly. Cleaning or replacing the pilot assembly fixes it.
- A gas supply problem. Less obvious, and covered below — this one is often misdiagnosed as a pilot fault when the pilot is perfectly fine.
- Draughts. Wind down the vent can physically blow a pilot out. If it only happens on stormy nights, that is a strong clue.
- You have run out of propane. Obvious, but check it before anything else if you are on a tank.
The one thing to look at before you call us
If you can get the fireplace running at all, this single observation tells us more than anything else you could report, and it costs you nothing but a look through the glass:
Does the pilot look weak with the burner off, or does it only go weak once the main burner fires?
- The pilot looks poor even with the burner off — small, orange, lazy, standing straight up rather than wrapping around the probe. That points at the pilot assembly itself, almost always a blocked orifice.
- The pilot looks healthy on its own but shrinks or goes orange the moment the main burner lights — that is not a pilot fault at all. It is a gas supply problem. When the burner starts drawing gas, the pressure drops far enough to starve the pilot. On the Island the usual culprit is a build-up inside the gas line restricting flow.
Those two symptoms look almost identical to a homeowner and lead to completely different repairs. Telling us which one you are seeing helps us turn up with the right parts.
A healthy pilot flame
For reference, a pilot in good order burns mostly blue, is steady rather than flickering wildly, and clearly envelops the tip of the probe sitting in it. A flame that is yellow or orange, obviously small, or leaning away from the probe is telling you something.
Yes, it is often spiders
We are not being flippant. A fireplace that sat unused all summer is an appealing place for insects, and a web spun inside the burner tube or across a pilot orifice restricts flow just as effectively as any mechanical fault. It is a common find on the first service of the season, and it is a good argument for booking that service in late summer rather than discovering the problem on the first cold evening.
What is safe to try, and what is not
Relighting the pilot is reasonable if you are comfortable doing it. Nearly every fireplace has instructions printed on a safety card fixed underneath the unit, behind the lower panel, written for your specific appliance. Follow that card rather than a generic method. It does involve holding a gas valve open by hand and lighting it with a spark, so if you are hesitant, leave it to us — there is no prize for pushing through.
If it lights and then dies again, stop there. That is a genuine fault, not a technique problem, and repeated attempts will not change the outcome.
Please do not remove panels to get at the burner, poke anything into the pilot opening, or adjust the air shutter. Those are all things that need a ticketed gas fitter with test equipment, and the shutter in particular is easy to leave in a state that produces soot and carbon monoxide.
If you smell gas at any point — rotten eggs or sulphur — stop, leave the building, and call the FortisBC 24-hour line on 1-800-663-7200 or 911 from outside. That is not a pilot problem and it is not something to troubleshoot.
If your fireplace has no standing pilot
If your pilot lights from the remote rather than by hand underneath the unit, you have electronic ignition instead, which sparks the pilot only when you call for heat. Those units fail differently — typically the igniter, the control module, the flame sensor, or simply a dead battery. Our guide to five things to check when a gas fireplace will not turn on is the better starting point.
Booking a repair
A pilot that will not hold is one of the most common repairs we do. Book a repair visit or call the service line on (250) 544-6789. Tell us the brand, whether the pilot is out entirely or lights and drops, and which of the two flame symptoms above you are seeing — it makes a real difference to what we bring.
If the unit is over twenty years old and this is not its first fault of the season, have a read of repairing versus replacing an older fireplace before committing to anything — not because a repair is the wrong answer, but because parts availability starts to matter at that age and it is better to know beforehand.