"Joe J." wrote in message
news
The house we just purchased has a gas fireplace built into the wall. The
gas company came out and restarted service and lit all the appliances,
including the fireplace pilot. It was still hot out and that pilot was
throwing off a good amount of heat so I used the wall shut-off valve to
turn it off. That was before I realized there was an off-valve underneath
the fireplace. The wall shutoff is a 2 inch circular mount into the wall
and the center contains the valve stem control which requires a key that
looks like an old roller skate key. Anyway, I'm trying to turn on the gas
and instead of the pin turning, the entire mount has broken free from the
wall and everything is rotating but I don't think the gas is being turned
on because I can't light the pilot. I tried putting a channel locks on
the outer mount and tried turning the valve stem but it won't budge.

I was thinking of buying some liquid wrench and spraying that on the
valve. Or, am I going to have to break open the wall and replace the
valve? The house is only 2 years old so I don't think corrosion would be
a factor???

Any ideas?



Thanks,

Joe



Get your family out of the house quick and then be damn sure there's no gas
leak if you've broken the valve before I'd let them back in. Call the gas
company.