That is what my heater guy says. Being outdoors 365/24/7 and it being so humid most of the time will rust it out eventually on the inner workings just like you were misting it with water on a regular basis. I fired it up early in the season before it got cold and it was ok, even worked fine up until about a week or so ago, then I guess the soot buildup loosened up just enough to start intermittently clogging the gas burners. The bad thing is you kind of have to disassemble the thing to get the burners out to clean them.
