I filled the unit with water on Friday night and fired it up. I saw a little water but thought it was condensation so I started the fire. After a couple hours it warmed up, I have it set to on at 180 off at 190. It seems to burn nicely with very little smoke, burning some white ash that has been dead standing I assume a few years.
I got the basement slab warming nicely, it took a couple days to get heated up.
Bad news, I noticed the water was down a little on Sunday morning and added about 12 gallons to fill it back to full. I'm pretty sure I can see a drip once in a while from the top baffle area inside the firebox. The stove is only around 6 years old as far as I can tell. But when we bought the house in June it hadn't been used for the whole previous season because the people got divorced and the lady just used the LP furnace. Well it still had a load of half burned wood in it and the chimney wasn't covered so it was pretty much festering soggy mess for over a year.
How bad is it to just keep topping the water off for now? I realize I am not going to be as efficient because I am losing 970 BTU for every pound of water leaked into the firebox evaporating. But am I going to make it worse? I need to let it go out and inspect with my scope camera to see exactly where the problem is. I hope it isn't in some unreachable area up above the baffle thing.