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QUESTION:I think there are three scenarios :
1. Your fireplace is designed to work with an external millivolt thermostat
(about half of them are, I think). In that case you just buy a millivolt (as
opposed to 24V) thermostat and run two wires from fireplace to thermostat.
We just did this with my parents Regency gas stove.
2. The fireplace uses an internal thermostat, usually millivolt design as
well (BTW, a millivolt thermostat is used when the gas valve is powered by a
thermocouple inserted in the pilot flame, so you're switching very low
voltages). You should be able to wire an external thermostat across the
internal one, set the internal thermostat to a very low temperature, and
control it with the external thermostat. If you have a switch that turns the
burners on and off you should be able to hook into those wires. The safest
would be to lift one of the wires and run the thermostat in SERIES with the
switch, so that the switch always disables the burners when off. The most
convenient would be to wire the thermostat in parallel, so the burners can
be turned on either by the switch or by the thermostat. You wouldn't want to
do that unless the thermostat had an "off" switch, or you would have to blow
out the pilot to make sure the burners didn't come on.
ANSWER: My old house is currently heated by a hodge-podge of baseboard electric
heat and an ancient centrally located natural gas wall furnace. I'm
replacing the wall furnace with a gas stove as my main source of heat. I
don't currently have a central thermostat to control the temperature,
but would like to add one to control the new gas stove. How difficult is
it to install a wall thermostat hooked to a gas stove? I've found lots
of info on replacing existing wall thermostats, but none about fresh
installs. Any advice? I'm somewhat handy and willing to try most
anything once (and not afraid to call in a pro if that fails!).
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