rust on chimney

Your thoughts on this?

My woodstove was installed last Spring (February 2012). The sweep was here yesterday for cleaning. He confirmed the "stuff" on the pipe is rust, but otherwise everything is fine. He said the store would have paint in a couple of weeks.

My thinking is that this is a new install and they should replace the pipe with one that will not rust so fast or paint it themselves, or at least give me the can of paint for free.

Why would a woodstove pipe rust so soon? There are scratches in the two new sections of the piping from the stove top, and the top section has no rust on the scratches (yet). This rusting seems to have nothing to do with scratches.

It is within a normal range to repaint a bit during annual maintenance / clean-up?

Update. I wiped off the "brown rust" with a paper towel. It came right off like dust. I would expect rust to be a rough surface? It was black on the paper towel. I wonder if the paint just "cooked" and turned to brown dust?

New photos 1) shows spotty area where the brown dust had been, 2) shows top of the pipe section and also the pipe above - neither were affected and the scratches on the first pipe section exposing pipe did not turn brown or rust, which further makes me doubt that the brown was rust

The area affected is the front of the lower half of the first pipe section that connects to the stove, and the back is very little affected. Why would the front be more affected than the back?

Any new thoughts on what happened?

This was new in February and only used a couple of months. I'd hate to have to paint this every year as maintenance. Is that normal? I do get a good roaring fire going once or twice a day. I'm told to do that to keep the stove cleaner of creosote and that you really can't over fire this big box. The stove thermometer stays a lot less hot than the pipe thermometer which gets pretty hot.

Could I just have a lower pipe section that has the wrong kind of paint or is "cheap" and not a good pipe?

Click the photos to see the full photo size.

Thanks. I will push to get a replacement. After paying over $3000 for the new stove install, I'd expect the store to make good on this. I can't imagine a new piece of pipe this small is that costly. Also that there are scratches that in the future could rust. Sloppy install?

Sounds like it is a fair amount of work to clean it up if I get "stuck" with it and I don't want to take responsibility for a good job and safety. Worst case if I get no good response, I will probably call my former chimney sweep and let him just take care of fixing this.

What product would you clean it with that does not leave a residue?

Thanks again.

Well, good news. I just printed out my photos and went to the store. The owner and his helper were both there. They will come to my house and clean up and do the painting, probably next week once they get the ordered supply of paint into the store. I said that is what I needed to hear.