Dimplex fireplace FYI

[sundancer 87]

The other day I fired up the ole Dimplex to take off the chill in the living room. It came on as expected but a few minutes later the heating element shut down. The fan continued to run and the flames flamed but no heat.

I went through the reset procedure to no avail so I emailed Dimplex support with my problem. An email from them wanted to know the serial number and all that and they ended with a suggestion that I might need a new heating element.

I'm smart enough to know that if the element comes on it isn't burned out so that leaves the thermocouple or heat sensor. Another email the next day from the service department tells me I need a new heating element that has the thermocouple included.

Ok I think but I'll check prices on this critter. Seems as if the element is worth nearly 200 bucks. That's approximately 1/3 of the price of a new unit. Other fireplace insert elements
were listed for 20 to 40 bucks so I'm thinking I could perhaps use another company's product and save some dollars.

I know my sub woofer is sitting on top of the fireplace and I know I have to pop the faux brick off the front of it to get it out of the hole in order to remove and disassemble it for measurement purposes.

I didn't want to pop off the brick once again for fear of breakage so I was searching for mounting screws on the outside so I could maybe sneak part of the fireplace out of there with the hopes of being able to do so while keeping the sub woofer from falling.

To my surprise I noticed the intake louvers were coated with dust and dirt as would be normal for air flow into a mechanism.

I pulled out the special paint brush and attached the vacuum cleaner hose and cleaned the louvers with the fireplace in place.

Saved myself 200 bucks by not buying what they were selling. I did take that 200 dollar savings though and used it to purchase another Dimplex insert to be used in the house.

Moral of the story, the louvers need to be cleaned occasionally. They are hard to see unless you get on the floor and look up into the fireplace openings.