# Mendota MIG-32 how to open glass door?



## suztwd (Feb 18, 2019)

My daughter bought a house with a Mendota MIG-32 gas insert.  The glass is all cloudy with white film so we want to open the door to clean it up.  She has the owners manual but it doesn't say how to open the doors. In the manual it says "install doors" but not how it was done.  The gas fireplaces I am familiar with have latches on top and bottom, but we can't find a latch.  There are about 4 bolts on top of the door behind the louvers, am I suppose to loose the bolts to open the door?  I have contacted Mendota with this specific question and they sent me a copy of the installation manual, which like I said tellls us nothing.  I replied to them about this and it was ignored.  Anyone have an answer how to do this??


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## wooduser (Feb 18, 2019)

https://mendotahearth.com/pdfs/manuals/D-30-0812.pdf


Here is a manual on a Mendota gas fireplace.  You might look at page 10 and page 14 which have illustrations on how the glass is installed.  Thjat may or may not provide you with clues on how your fireplace glass can be removed.

If that's not helpful,  you might try Googling Mendota fireplaces and checking for other gas fireplace manual until you find one that provides you with clues that help you get the glass off.


Yes,  the combustion gasses can attack  and pit the glass over time.  The easiest solution is to spend $300-400 for new glass.

Cleaning the glass may help for a time,  perhaps many years.  I actually didn't replace too many gas fireplace glass covers when I was doing repairs,  but there were plenty that were fogged even after being cleaned.

You might look for a good glass shop that will polish the glass for you.  That involves using polishing solutions that will polish away the pits,  then ever finer solutions until the transparency of the glass is restored.  It might be that the pitting is too deep for that kind of operation.

Call around until you find a glass shop that can discuss this more intelligently than I can.

Might be something to do during the summer when you aren't using the fireplace.


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## wooduser (Feb 18, 2019)

suztwd said:


> . There are about 4 bolts on top of the door behind the louvers, am I suppose to loose the bolts to open the door?




That sounds like a good start....


As a gas fireplace repairman,  finding out how to take the glass off a fireplace I hadn't seen before was sometimes the hardest part of the job!  I often wondered at the impression I made on a customer when I was trying to get the glass off.  You have sympathy for my plight now,  right?


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## suztwd (Feb 18, 2019)

Thank you, that give me another angle to try.  I will see it this weekend, and will try again.  It does give a good appreciation for technicians that can figure things out!  
I am super frustrated with Mendota, since they are located in our state, and know the good old Midwest work ethic and friendliness, and didn't think I would run into such awful customer service.  Their loose.  We are buying a gas insert for an old wood burner, and it was between a Mendota and a Heat and Glo, this helped us decide that it won't be Mendota if this is the best we can expect from them.


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## wooduser (Feb 19, 2019)

suztwd said:


> I am super frustrated with Mendota, since they are located in our state, and know the good old Midwest work ethic and friendliness, and didn't think I would run into such awful customer service.



Well,  they did send you the manual.

Frankly,  as a gas appliance repairman who worked on a wide variety of gas appliances,  including a lot of gas fireplaces,  there is very rarely much information to go on as to how to make repairs other than that provided by the physical fact of the fireplace or appliance itself.  Repairman are simply expected to be able to figure out how to take apart and reassemble appliances on their own.

As I mentioned,  it could be a puzzelment just figuring out how to get the glass off sometimes,  engineers having a wide variety of cunning methods to keep that in place.  Exactly the same problem you are having.

Even if there was some explanation someplace,  there was no way to get access to such an explanation,  at least before the widespread availability of the web.  Of course,  after you solved the problem on a fireplace you hadn't seen before,  it was a lot easier when you saw it again.  And engineers tend to use the same tricks on other fireplaces,  which is why I sugfgested you investigate the manuals on other Mendota fireplaces for clues on how the glass on yours might be attached.

You actually described a possible way to get the glass out, with the four bolts you described.  You just had the good sense to not mess with something you didn't really know about,  not realizing that being a fireplace repairman requires that you have the MORAL COURAGE to mess with stuff that isn't clear without damaging it in case it doesn't work!

I'll be interested to hear about how you solve your issue.  I hope I've given you a few clues which might be helpful.


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## Millbilly (Feb 19, 2019)

wooduser said:


> That sounds like a good start....
> 
> 
> As a gas fireplace repairman,  finding out how to take the glass off a fireplace I hadn't seen before was sometimes the hardest part of the job!  I often wondered at the impression I made on a customer when I was trying to get the glass off.  You have sympathy for my plight now,  right?


I can appreciate this statement lol.


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