Services
Repairs
Concerning repairs, it is first important to point out that Federal law prohibits us from repairing any wood stove or wood fireplace insert that is not EPA-approved (don’t shoot the messenger here).
If your stove is EPA approved, we can re-brick it, replace heat tubes, weld a seam, free a sticky air intake, re-gasket the door, and lots more. Sometimes to minimize cost, we may ask you to send us pictures of the unit to determine if repairs can be made.
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Maintenance
Maintenance is pretty much sweeping the chimney and cleaning the ash from the unit.
Stove Doctor technicians are OSCA-certified chimney sweeps and have lots of knowledge about the best way to clean your unit. We use specialized equipment to make sure we get your unit as clean as possible.
Once on sight, our first task is a safety inspection, and verifying the need for a sweep. Unlike lots of others, if we determine you do not need a sweep, we will tell you. At that point you may choose not to complete the sweep and you only pay our inspection fee. Otherwise, at your request we will do a complete sweep anyway, for your peace of mind.
This is the outside run of class A pipe from the wood stove vented through the wall. This must be swept 2 times a year due to the pipe being cold.
A strange creosote formation due to the cap being gone and high winds.
This is a special wood stove cap that got filled with creosote due to green wood. NEVER ATTEMPT THIS YOURSELF!! Leave it to the pros as this can be very dangerous and could cause damage or a larger fire.
This was caused by burning very green wood with the stove air control closed all the time.
This is a typical freestanding pellet stove.
This was caused by a failing auger motor. We were able to remove the stove and repair it. Result: Happy Customer!
This fire was caused by encroaching the clearances on the pipe. It was in direct contact with the roofing and took several years to cause the fire. Thank the Lord, no lives were lost but the house was a total loss.
This is what a pipe looks like after a chimney fire.This must be thoroughly inspected and probably replaced. Chimney fires burn at 2000 + degrees.
This little guy was with us the whole repair time and couldn’t wait for HIS pellet stove to warm him up!
This is a very dangerous chimney. No option in this case but to replace the pipe. Do not burn it even once!
This is a loaded room fan. This causes low heat output and overheating of the stove. This needs to be cleaned now.
Repairs
The first is “Help! My stove is broken and I’m freezing!”
You might see that your stove will not feed pellets, or it shuts down after burning for a while. The inside of the stove may look all glossy black, or the glass may look like someone poured maple syrup on it. The automatic igniter, (if your stove has one) may not light the stove. Your burn pot may be full of unburned pellets.
It might feed fuel continuously. Maybe it is excessively noisy or makes a loud squeaking noise while running. It could be that the unit makes a loud noise like a tire spinning out of round on a truck. Your heat advance lights on the control board might be blinking instead of solid and the stove won’t work at all. Perhaps there is
a strong odor of hot metal or an electrical smell when the stove
is burning.
This can be a variety of problems such as a failed blower, auger motor, safety device, a bad control board, or sometimes a cleaning or a combination of several things.
Once on sight, our first step is to properly diagnose the root
cause, not just the top symptom. The Stove Doctor brings years
of experience to the playing field, and our technicians are very well-trained. This means we can diagnose your stove and effect the right repairs.
One of our company policies is “Treat our customer’s money like
it is our money, don’t spend what you don’t need to spend.”We make sure to repair your stove correctly and will give you a heads-up to anything else we see, but we don’t just replace parts and hope it works. We work hard to do it right.
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Maintenance
The second category is maintenance. We stress that regular maintenance of the stove and chimney is critical for proper performance.
Our cleaning system brings your stove as close to factory-new as we can make it. We use a tried and proven cleaning system that will clear up a lot of problems by itself.
These problems might include lazy flames, burn pot overflowing with pellets (if they’re burning, if they’re not burning that could be an entirely different problem), poor heat output, difficulty in lighting, and so on.
Our first order of business, when we get on sight, is to diagnose the problem. Again, we don’t want to spend any more of your money than we have to. If it is determined that a full cleaning is needed, it routinely takes between 1 and 2 hours to complete.
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We have a variety of specialized tools and techniques to do the job right. Many of our first-time cleaning customers will comment that we do more in the first 20 minutes of our cleaning than the last company did in the entire job.
We strongly recommend that if you are burning more than 75 bags of fuel per season, you should have your stove professionally cleaned yearly. You will find that if we do the cleaning once a
year, your amount of work to keep the stove working will go down quite a bit.
Many of our loyal customers take advantage of our forward book program. After your first cleaning, we can determine if this program is right for you. This program may offer special discounts, and we clean your stove and chimney every summer.
The program is not a locked-in contract. If for some reason you did not use your stove as much, just tell us when we call and we can roll the cleaning to the next summer. Think of it as changing the oil on your car. Not exciting, but well worth the money in the long run.
Our gas stove or gas fireplace services fall into two categories. Repairs and maintenance.
Repairs
Our gas stove or gas fireplace services fall into two categories. Repairs and maintenance.
Repairs include some common symptoms such as, the pilot light going out, the pilot burning but the unit won’t come on, or sometimes both. Other problems include, the unit won’t respond to the thermostat or wall switch, and the unit burning very black, blackening up the glass.
The Stove Doctor does not work on furnaces or heat pumps, but we do repairs on almost all types of natural gas fireplaces, gas inserts, and freestanding stoves. We do not service propane units.
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Maintenance
Maintenance is something that lots of folks forget about when it comes to gas units. They do not build ash, or suffer creosote in the chimney, but they do need periodic service to keep them in good working order.
Blackening up the glass is a classic symptom of a unit that needs to be serviced. Other symptoms include delayed ignition, real bright yellow flames, candle looking pilot flames, burning dust odors and the appearance of lint, or dust in the valve area of the stove.
The Stove Doctor applies a very gentle but effective cleaning technique that is adapted from our more aggressive pellet cleaning process to ensure that your unit is working as it should.
The first step in either repair or maintenance is a full inspection. This includes a complete leak check and function check. If we find that nothing else is needed, you only pay a minimum service call. All service work is concluded with a function check to make sure the unit is functioning normally.
This failure is caused by the water vapor mixed with sulfur present in gas stove exhaust. This is a dangerous scenario and must be replaced.
Not much room but we were able to replace the valve. Result Happy Customer!
This is a built-in gas fireplace.
It needed a new valve. We replaced it and have a very happy customer!
Blackening up the glass is a classic symptom of a unit that needs to be serviced. After fixing the problem we then clean the glass.
This chimney had our de-moss, crown rebuild, water and crown seal with a new stainless-steel cap. Water damage is just as much a problem as fire damage.
This can be added to a masonry fireplace for reflection heat. Never add this to a zero-clearance fireplace.
This was a bad repair and frost wedging did its work.
This can be seen from the ground. At this point the damage is not overly expensive to correct. If let go, it could cost several thousand dollars to repair or replace.
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A masonry fireplace is built of brick. The fireplace itself will have a firebrick liner inside the combustion chamber and depending on the age, will have a clay flue tile liner in the brick chimney.
In contrast, a zero-clearance fireplace is constructed of sheet metal and usually has a refractory lining in the combustion chamber. Its chimney is usually comprised of sheet metal sleeves that fit one inside the other.
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Repairs
Repairs for masonry fireplaces fall into two groups. The first is fire related. This would include replacing firebrick in the combustion chamber, welding up cracks in a heat form, or replacing clay flue tiles.
The second type of repair is when water gets involved. We live in a rainforest. Water damage is a quiet type of destructive force that, over time will destroy a masonry chimney.
Although we are not masons and cannot rebuild your chimney from scratch, we do lots of repairs to crowns and install caps to keep water from damaging the brick and clay flue tiles.
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Maintenance
Maintenance is the same for masonry and zero-clearance units.
We need to keep the chimney clean to avoid chimney fires.
We do complete safety inspections of the unit and the chimney before we sweep them. Then we do a second chimney inspection after the sweep to look for any damage that might have been hiding under the soot and ash.
Masonry chimneys are also susceptible to water damage. We take care of them by removing the moss and then water-sealing the brick-and-mortar joints with industrial-grade water sealer.
We also apply an elastic coating to the crown to stop any frost-wedging cracks from opening up and allowing water to damage the brick from the inside out.
We are OSCA-certified chimney sweeps and take your safety
very seriously.