Skyflame Fire Pit Gas Burner Spark Ignition Kit - Including Push Button Igniter, 3/4 Straight Gas Key Valve with Key, Black

I built this spool fire place and wanted an exterior electric ignition and flow control. Good lookin and quality easy to setup product.

Easy to install. Works well. A little difficult to get igniter lined up, but once you do it’s great.

When putting together the list of parts and pieces needed to construct the fire pit I built this past Fall, I really wanted a bracket to hold both the valve and a battery-powered spark igniter. You would think this type of thing would be readily available, but there are surprisingly few of them on the market. I opted for a Warming Trends burner, and they do in fact have such a product, although it's definitely not inexpensive. Then I came across this unit on Amazon for $110, and it looked like the perfect answer... and it looks almost identical to the one Warming Trends sells but for a whole lot less. There's a reason for that... Shortly after it arrived, I thought I'd check it out. The bracket is very sturdy and the width is adjustable, and the spark igniter works great and it right about the perfect height to work with the burner assembly. The problem was the valve. To access the valve when this item is installed inside a stack of 8" deep fire pit blocks, you really need a couple of elbows. Street elbows are ideal, since they will thread directly into the valve and minimize the overall width, so I picked up a couple of those (in black iron), brought them home and threaded them into the valve so as not to misplace them until I was ready to do the installation. I was surprised to find out that they threaded in further than the roughly three turns I expected from tapered threads, and in fact with a little effort I was able to hand turn the fittings all the way into the valve threading to where they bottomed out! I tried a couple of 3/4" pipe nipples I had laying around as well, and had the same issue. I can't really tell for sure if the valve's female threading is simply not tapered or if the threading is cut with too large a diameter, but either way this is a manufacturing problem. While the valve is probably usable with enough tape and/or pipe dope to keep the connections from leaking, the fact that a tight mechanical connection between the threading cannot be made the way it should be is not a good thing. As a result, I decided to purchase an alternate valve, also thru Amazon, for about $30. The new valve fit the bracket nicely, its threading was correct, and it's now installed and leak-free. I've rated the unit three stars because the bracket itself is great as is the igniter; but it's certainly a more expensive item if you have to invest another $30 in a decent valve.

I like the look of the unit and I was able to make it fit into my firepit after cutting some of the stones, but I was never able to get the igniter to work properly. When triggering it, it would arc at the base of the unit and not by the propane. I was able to get it working or so I thought, but then the whole thing decided to stop clicking altogether. I tried replacing the battery several times, but no luck. In the end, I use this to turn on the gas and light it with a lighter. Not the end of the world, but not what I was hoping for when I purchased this either.

The valve that comes with this is junk. The threads are too wide/not deep enough and the male piece will bottom out before a correct seal is made. This was my experience, and then was confirmed by my gas contractor. The valve is simple enough to replace, however you're paying for one so you expect it to work.