New Envirofire RUSTING :( (house near Saltwater)

[crowinghen]

We installed a pellet stove in November in our beach house ( on the Puget Sound, WA) basically it's the only source of heat, this is a fixer upper.
It didn't really seem to put out the heat, so we installed an OAK ( per the dealer recommendation) and it really seemed to make a difference in the heat ou put.
Well, right away I noticed the rust on the burn pot- seemed like no big deal, it's easily replaceable and made of thick stuff.
Well last week end I noticed that the heat exchanger tubes are rusting as well as other parts like the feed tube where they pellets come out of the hopper. The hopper is okay.
I took a picture and showed it to the dealer that sold us the stove. He contacted Envirofire right away, and they said they've never heard of this, but maybe we were using bad pellets, or lived on the coast... bingo- on the coast.
they recommended that we plug the outside air intake. The delaer said it shouldn't make a difference in the stove heat output ( disagreeing with the advice he had already given us)
So what do you guys think- anyone here have an OAK and live on the saltwater and have problems?
This is a 1000 sq foot beach house that we usually just come out for the week-ends.
What do you thik of the advice w've been given?I was thinking of using Damp rid in the box when we leave- would that help also?
I'm very dissapointed to say the least, esp since we didn't get any great deal on the stove because we NEEDED to have some heat. But the dealer does seem to be approachable, if not very consistent.
thanks for any help.! sorry about the huge picture.

 

[crowinghen]

Ps I'm usin g the pellets from the dealer- Clean burn

 

[Delta-T]

saltwater notorious for corrosive properties...you may not see a whole lot of differnce in efficiency without OAK if its just a part time place. I think \you'll just have to "pick a poison"...lose a few efficiency points or buy new metal pieces occasionally.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

With or without an OAK if you are in a humid location you are going to get rust on unprotected metal that is a part of any combustion device.

If you want to prevent it you have to provide the protection when the stove isn't being burned and this is critical during the high humidly portion of the year.

There are threads on here about properly shutting your stove down after the heating season.

 

[crowinghen]

This happened during the heating season

 

[crowinghen]

and it came painted when new ( 3 months ago)

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

How much are you running it? Usually rust and fire don't go hand in hand.

The fire burned the protection off, the ash combined with moist air is causing the corrosion.

If this is a place you visit only occasionally you'll need to find a way to cut down on the humidly getting into the stove's air system. This usually means blocking the vent and air intake, then a desiccant (damp rid, silica gel) gets placed in the pot and firebox.

ETA: You might want to read the threads returned by this https://www.google.com/search?q=cle...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a search

 

[chamas]

Is it surface rust or is the metal pitted and eaten away? Surface rust is normal in the (non-stainless steel) firebox. Any factory-applied protective paint will be burned off during the first hot fires, leaving the firebox steel exposed to environmental activity.

Does the stove or its air intake see salty air? Some beach locations are worse than others in terms of prevailing winds and salt spray. Do any of your other unpainted steel items rust similarly?

If it were me, I would block off the intake (and exhaust, if easily accessible), spray the surfaces in the firebox with PAM vegitable oil, and place a Dri-Z-Air or similar inside the firebox when not using the stove for an extended period of time.

Another thought: Some have reported seeing pellets with high salt content, which would obviously accelerate the corrosion process.

 

[crowinghen]

Thanks all for the replies!
We are going to see about sealing up the intake and exhaust when we're not running it-- t doesn't seem to make much sense to remove the outside air intake when the exhaust post can still bring in salty air. So gonna use a damp rid bucket and come up with something to cover the exhaust and intake holes when we're not there,\ will keep you posetd- thanks!

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Thanks all for the replies!
We are going to see about sealing up the intake and exhaust when we're not running it-- t doesn't seem to make much sense to remove the outside air intake when the exhaust post can still bring in salty air. So gonna use a damp rid bucket and come up with something to cover the exhaust and intake holes when we're not there,\ will keep you posetd- thanks!

Did you read the threads about the rust and clean fire pellets returned in the Google search, you likely have a pellet issue, very high salt content.

 

[crowinghen]

I thought they had taken care of the salt issue... I wonder how I can tell if they contain salt?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I thought they had taken care of the salt issue... I wonder how I can tell if they contain salt?

Get the crud off of your stove and burn another brand of pellets.