Pilot Light Installation

This service adds an ignition system to a fireplace that lacks a functioning one. That's a different job from fixing a failed part — it's choosing and building the way the appliance will light. Prime Chimney Experts installs pilot ignition as a system: the pilot burner, the proving circuit, the igniter, and the interlock that ties them to the gas valve, selected and assembled to work together from the start. We are a national brand, and the standard we hold in one metro is the standard we hold in all of them.

How this differs from pilot-assembly-replacement: that service swaps a specific failed part on an ignition system that already exists and used to work — your fireplace had a pilot, it dropped out, we replace the dead component. This service is for the case where there is no working ignition to repair: a unit that was built without one, had its pilot removed, or is getting a new ignition architecture entirely. Replacement renews; installation builds. The tell is simple — if there's nothing there to swap, you're on the right page.

The first real decision is the architecture, because the two systems behave differently and the choice is permanent until the next conversion. A standing pilot burns a small flame continuously — it costs a few dollars of gas a month, but it's simple, and crucially it still lights during a power outage because its thermopile generates its own millivolts. An electronic (intermittent pilot ignition, IPI) system sparks a pilot only on demand, saving that standing fuel, but it generally needs household power or a battery backup to fire. We walk you through that trade-off against how you actually use the fireplace — outage operation, fuel cost, convenience — and size the system to the answer rather than to whatever box is on the shelf.

Building the system means building the flame-proving interlock from scratch, and that's the safety core of the whole job. The proving circuit — thermocouple on a standing pilot, thermopile or flame-sense rod on an electronic system — is what tells the gas valve a flame is actually present; without a correctly built and aimed prove circuit, the valve has no way to know whether gas is burning or just flowing. We mount the pilot so its flame fully envelops the sensor, match the thermocouple/thermopile or igniter and module to the appliance valve, and wire the interlock so the valve cannot hold gas open unless the flame proves. On an electronic install we also set up the power or battery backup and the ignition module the architecture requires.

Because this is new ignition hardware tied into a live fuel train, the components must be matched and the whole thing commissioned, not just lit once. We confirm the valve will accept the chosen ignition (some older millivolt valves can't accept an IPI retrofit and would themselves need replacement — a boundary we flag before quoting), set the pilot flame for reliable, clean light-off, leak-test the gas connection by manometer and bubble soap, and run an ambient CO check. Then we light it repeatedly to confirm the new system proves and holds every time, not just on the first try.

We finish by handing you a system you understand: how this ignition lights, what it does in an outage, and what its standing cost or battery upkeep is. Premium service here isn't a flame we got going once — it's an ignition system designed for how you live with the fireplace, built to prove safe, and explained so you're never guessing why it did or didn't light.