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 Gas fireplace needs help. 
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The car battery and inverter are good for very short term only.
For anything approaching even one full day of running an HVAC level fan, a site must have either a battery bank or another source of electricity to charge that battery or battery bank.

An automotive battery is nominally 12V, and utility supplied electricity is 120V. That means that the battery must supply Ten times the amperage that the 120V appliance uses ... This is before throwing in the line (IsquaredR) and conversion losses that are inherent in all transformer and inverter operations involving voltage changes.
On the plus side, all those voltage losses result in a heat output.

So to illustrate, a fan that requires just one amp at 120VAC would require roughly ten amps from a lead acid battery (plus all losses) to run from a 12VDC to 120VAC inverter.
Let's say that you have a brand new perfect condition 120amp hour 12VDC battery, and for ideal purposes, it is a deep cycle battery so that you can use it for more than just a few discharges.
That 120 amp hour battery can nominally supply 10 amps for 12 hours. (This is extremely simplified... a battery's ampacity is hugely dependent on the RATE that it is discharged, as well as several other factors like age, temperature, discharge history, type (chemistry), etc.)
A lower discharge rate results in the ability to supply more amp hours, to a limit.

As a point of comparison, I built a system on my family's offgrid cabin that had a 4,000 pound battery bank, kept terrific care of it, and with some careful limiting of electrical loads still only got one week from it before reaching my "drop dead must recharge" level.

Bottom line, you need to spend some time learning the intricacies and then designing a well-built system if you're going to be planning on a battery backup system...Alternatively, spend BIG $ to buy a turn key system.
If you don't, you can cobble together something that will work for small loads for a short time, but do not plan on supplying a 10 amp load for longer than a day, and that only if you have some high quality components in good shape and starting at peak charge.


Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:35 am
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What's wrong with a 12v cooling fan out of a computer?

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Wed Feb 13, 2019 10:13 am
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AR15L wrote:
What's wrong with a 12v cooling fan out of a computer?

Without more information, nothing.

Calculate the volume of air that you need to have moved, and the capacity of the fan versus the amp load. Might be perfect for your needs... But this is only for very small spaces, not for circulating air through a house or even a large room.

My post was a recommendation that people do some planning, and even try it out before an actual need arises. It seems to me that people may rely on an "easy solution" without ever having tried it out to see how it works.


Wed Feb 13, 2019 10:25 am
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JohnMBrowning wrote:
If the pilot light is still on, your thermopile is OK.
I would suspect the wall switch --- I had the same problem and it turned out being a cracked switch housing --- would work sometimes, but would go out for no reason.

Just to test - pop the wires off the switch and connect them together (real low voltage - don't be afraid) -- if it fires up, its the switch.

I didn't figure mine out until one day when it flamed out, I went to flip the switch off and ended up just pushing it sideways and it suddenly flamed on again. A failed switch was not something I would have guessed or considered.


This may be correct, but another likely scenario is this:

What is likely the issue is that the thermopile is dirty/corroded, which happens over time, and causes a low millivolt output. That combined with the resistance in the wires and switch will cause it to work poorly, or not at all. The switch itself corrodes/tarnishes inside because it's got brass or copper contacts. When you have 110v for a light, and lose a quarter of a volt to resistance, it doesn't matter, you never see the loss and the voltage passes through the tarnished contacts just fine. But when you only have about half of a volt total, and lose a half of that, then the fireplace won't get enough voltage to function. The reason wiggling the switch helps is that it rubs the contacts inside slightly and finds a more clear/clean contact area. The reason it sometimes goes back out when it gets hot is that the draft of the flue gasses pulls the pilot flame up and it makes less contact with an already weak thermopile, lowering the output more, which then goes below the minimum to keep the valve open and it closes. Sometimes if you leave it be it will calm down inside the fireplace and light back up again.

To fix it properly, take it apart and clean the thermopile with some emery cloth and get all the white residue off of it. Also blow out the pilot assembly itself and ensure you have a strong blue flame, not a yellow "candle-like" flame. The strong blue flame resists the draft pulling it away from the thermopile and also produces more heat than a dirty yellow flame does. It also doesn't hurt to replace the wall switch. Just any old wall switch from your local hardware store will work fine. Connect your low volt wires to the screw terminals on the side of the switch, not that push-in connections on the back, they don't have enough contact area to work properly.

If anyone has any other fireplace related issues (gas or pellet) ask away. I work on them for a living.


Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:41 pm
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Logan80 wrote:
If anyone has any other fireplace related issues (gas or pellet) ask away. I work on them for a living.


Awesome, thank you. :thumbsup2:

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Leave it cleaner than you found it.


Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:44 pm
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Sounds like I need to pull my thermopile for a good cleaning!

I ramain flabergasted at how much I learn from you all reading through the various daily posts, thank you :bow: :wagwoot:


Thu Feb 14, 2019 9:13 pm
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No need to pull it. Just take a pic of where the logs are (it matters that they be placed correctly) then remove the logs to get to the pilot and clean it from there. It’s real easy.


Fri Feb 15, 2019 8:22 am
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