I thought I needed one when it stopped self igniting. My nightmare "authorized" dealer couldn't make it out any time soon and I needed the heat, so I had them call St. Croix (since they won't talk to owners) and ask if I could start it with gel in the meantime. Turns out you can, although it's very tricky to do so with this device since it's not meant to work that way. I did it a couple of times and since it was such a PITA to pull off just kept it going 24/7 after I got it lit. Finally had a cold cleaning scheduled for today and took it apart to see what the igniter looked like (was hoping for a third party solution), and found that the hole which lets the igniter superheat the pellets was plugged up. It's way down on the burnpot in the part you can't see from the front. I'd been reaching around with a wire brush and scraping down there on every cold cleaning (once a week), but somewhere in there it got bridged and closed off. Attacked it from the igniter side (since I had it out) until I saw clear light from a flashlight from the igniter hole through to the burnpot, put it all back together and it's back. Now I have another couple hundred bucks to spend on beer, and I get the satisfaction of calling my nightmare dealer (who's never there or just doesn't answer the phone, and doesn't answer messages left on his machine) to tell him I don't need him anyway, thanks.