Fireplace in a three season room?

[brogich]

First off - I would like to thank everyone for the contributions to this website. The amount of valuable information here is amazing. I am building a new house in WI. I have decided to build a "3 season" room on the house. I am building this room fairly rustic looking and love the look of a roaring fire in the fall. I have three options for the fireplace and would like some feed back from people with experience. The room is not going to be heated or have a/c and its only attachted to the house via a breezeway. The fireplace options are either build a full masonry fireplace, do a masonary "like" fireplace such as "firerock" or do a fireplace box. I am leaning towards the fireplace box - but now I am being told that it will rust out if exposed to any elements. The room will be enclosed so rain will not get on it but if I dont have the windows closed we could get moisture from dew or fog. Can these boxes actually rust? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[basswidow]

I would think you could use a zero clearance (heatator type) prefab fire place. I had one in my house that was set up with a gas log set - it was rated to burn wood - just not rated for stove temps. I sold it on craigslist to a guy who was going to use it as an outdoor fire place. He even took the flue to use. He was tickled to get it so cheap. If you look for something like this, you could easily frame it to spec's and put a stone vaneer around it. There might be a concern that some of the metal showing could rust???? But you could always clean the rust up and hit it with some high temp black paint. Would be a less expensive route then a full blow masonary fireplace. If it's gonna be under roof - just no windows, it's not like it will get rained on, just maybe some dew? It was brick lined and the only metal exposed was the glass door track and trim.

Good luck.