I have a Desa fireplace (with pilot and wall switch) that had the fake logs and glass front. I took all those out and replaced the burner with an H unit and put fireplace glass chips on top of it. The pilot seems to light okay and lights the H unit as long as there isn't any glass around it but it kind of takes away from the whole effect of the glass chips covering all of the H unit when there's a big gap around the pilot. Would I be able to override all of the pilot stuff and connect straight to the gas intake and manually light and control it with the gas valve? If so, could I also control the flame with just the gas valve? It puts out a lot of heat.

Thanks for your help!