Heritage Hearthstone/bloom/stain

[Dottie]

I don't know how to describe this problem exactly, but here goes. in the joint where the soapstone and the ceramic meet in front of the stove on the left hand side right under where the door opens, a bloom/stain of yellow whitish (I don't know what to call it), appears every month or so. It's rather like a lime deposit.

At first I thought that my sister's unreliable male cat was the culprit, but I keep the door closed and I'm pretty sure he hasn't gotten in, much less goes to the same place every time.

I put some cedar kitty litter pellets in the stove last year to freshen the inside and keep it dry, could this be the problem? I took it out last week after the discoloration appeared again.

I'm afraid that whatever is, it may cause the cast iron to rust and ruin the stove. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Is there something to put on the cast iron (which is covered with enamel) to prevent rust?

Thank you. Hope this e-mail isn't too pet graphic.

 

[struggle]

no idea but can you post a picture of it. I can not really imagine it causing harm to the stove.

You can be sure you could smell cat urine if it was that.

Does it show up after it rains? Possible water coming from the pipe?

 

[Highbeam]

I think you mean the joint where the soapstone and cast iron meet? There is no ceramic unless you are looking at the fiber board baffle that makes the inner roof.

So this is on the outside of the stove, the shiny side? Nothing leaks out of mine. However just inside the door on the inner "sill" which is cast iron I get a whitish deposit like lime that corresponds with the air wash coming down from above the front door on the inside. It doesn't drip or run but is sort of chalky and I assume it is the cold/wet outside air condensing on the cast iron.

The outside of the stove is funk free.

 

[Highbeam]

Oh, perhaps one more thought is that as HS assembles these stoves they spooge the furnace cement between the blocks and then push them together. Is the white stuff hard remnants of this cement?

 

[Dottie]

Well, the whatever it is appears on the lower left hand side, not directly where the door opens but a few inched below on the lower part of the stove where the soapstone meets the ceramic that overlays the cast iron. I thought that maybe it could rust in that "crack" where the soapstone is set into the ceramic covered cast iron.

 

[Ithaca]

Sounds like cat piss to me. They will hit the same spots and you won't see them do it because.. well they're cats. Stove brings in new smells that must be covered. I'd say throw the cat in but Heritage is a Non-Cat stove.

 

[Dottie]

You could be right, but no smells that can be detected. I don't know about the "non-cat" observation; my cat loves it and spends all the time she can sleeping in the fireplace behind the stove!

Thanks.

Dottie

 

[SteveT]

I don't know about the "non-cat" observation; my cat loves it.........

That was a pun (and not a bad one, either). He was making a play on words with the fact that the stove is non-catalytic. People usually just shorten that to non-cat.