Condensation in Valve compartment on IPI units

[Mrfire]

I have a Heat & Glo fireplace that has the IPI technology in it. The unit works great in the spring and summer but in the winter when our temperatures can dip as low as -40 and we turn the unit on, ice is forming under the unit and then melting on the electronics which then fries them. The dealer has been told by Heat & Glo that they have never heard of this.
The chase that this unit is installed in is Insulated, Drywalled and vapour barriered and yet we are still shorting out controls. Anyone else seeing this and if so how did you fix it?

 

[summit]

you should be able to turn the pilot to a "constant" mode to alleviate this issue when it gets real cold.

 

[Mrfire]

That is true. So does that mean that everyone in a colder climate has to buy a remote with these units to do that or is there a way to have the unit run with the pilot all the time?

 

[summit]

should be a switch for a "continuous pilot" or something like it... there is on all the SIT valve equipped IPI units I deal with.

 

[jtp10181]

The Dexen system that Heat & Glo uses does not have a pilot switch unless you make one, its not very hard for an experienced tech to rig up using a $2 toggle switch.

I have seen this in two cases. Both instances it was found that cold air was leaking in from either the chase cavity or the basement and then up behind the fireplace where the gas line came up through.

We have installed thousands of IPI units here, and the fact that I have only seen two have this problem tells me it is something with the houses, not a problem with the fireplaces.

One of the houses I noted they also had a dehumidifier in the basement, which read 55% and the homeowner stated they have to run it in the winter sometimes. So the house had way too much humidity in it for some reason, I cannot recall if they had a whole house humidifier system or not.