Gas fireplace ignores thermostat

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Skidad

New Member
Jan 17, 2017
4
Ontario, Canada
I havve a majestic direct vent gas fireplace with remote command centre. Last winter, a service technician replaced the pilot assembly and cleaned the fireplace. For the last several months now, the fireplace essentially ignores the settings on the remote thermostat. Last night, it was set at 68 deg. The fire stayed on heating the room up to 76, at which point I manually turned the fireplace off. Other times, the fireplace does not light even when the room temp is several degrees cooler than the setting (the pilot light is lit when this happens). Tonight, the fireplace is continuoussly turning on and off every minute or so. I replaced the batteries in the remote and receiver. I have placed the remote in various locations and distances from the fireplace. I switched to a brand new remote, no improvement. Two seperate service guys could not i.d. the problem, but charged me handsomely for their time. Really at wits end here. It seems to really act up when the outside temp us below freezing. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
Can you tell us the model numbers of the unit & the remote so we can look at the owner's manual?
Can't make a call without knowing what we're up against.
 
I looked over the install/owner's manual for the fire place & the manual for the remote.
I am unfamiliar with either, but I thought something might jump out at me.
There are more guys in here that may be able to help.
You'll hafta wait for a bit. Sorry.
 
I looked over the install/owner's manual for the fire place & the manual for the remote.
I am unfamiliar with either, but I thought something might jump out at me.
There are more guys in here that may be able to help.
You'll hafta wait for a bit. Sorry.

Thanks for trying
 
There may be a manual switch by the burners that would override the remote. I would guess it would need to be in the off position. The receiver may have a switch also. And it should probably be in the "remote" position and not in the "on" position. May be worth a try.
 
It's a bit of an old post, but if you still need assistance I can probably help. There's a few things that could be going on here, and it's possible there is more than one issue at play. One easy thing to check for is a sticky valve, which I have encountered a lot on these systems and can cause some of the symptoms you described. When the flame is on give the valve a light tap with a screwdriver or something solid. Be careful to just hit the solid metal body and stay clear of any pipes, wires etc. This is just a light *rap*. Does it turn off? Watch the pilot especially. Another common symptom of this is when you turn the unit off often the pilot will stay on even though you do not have it set to do so.

Another thing to check, if the unit goes over temperature and does no turn off try turning the temperature setting up past the current setting, then down past the current setting. Try that several times, does it work?

The issue being exacerbated by outdoor temperature / weather could be related to your pilot assembly swap, the flame sensors on these systems are very finicky. Try overriding the IPI setting and changing it to CPI and see if that makes it more consistent. These are probably two separate issues.
 
Just an additional thought: I don't know how old the fireplace is, but there were a batch of these a few years back that had the control boards recalled. iirc one of the issues was poor remote communication. It would be worth a call to your local dealer and have them look into if your serial number is amongst the recalled.