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[lugnut]

lugnut..... is this OWB your first experience at burning wood to heat your house?  these things do seem to like to consume wood and if you are new to burning ,,,,,well it might seem like a lot of wood. i have been burning since 9/7-till now have burnt 4&1/2 cords. my lines are homemade also and with no draw for heat i loose about 1* in around 300 ft round trip, buried at 2ft and it will melt snow . you can probably bury the same lines deeper and not melt snow but heat loss would be the same .
 if my heat loss ever increases i will re dig the 65 ft that is buried an sleeve that section to protect against dampness.

Jim,

Yes sir..this is my first OWB.  I used to have a wood burning stove out in my shop, but the insurance company shut me down.  I suppose NOW that I actually know how much wood composes a chord, I don't feel so bad.  Although the wood on the side of my shop was but 3.5' high x 9-10' wide x 36' deep, I have no way of knowing how many chord that is/was.  So yeah, I look at that wood that I once had and think..."holy cow, I'm going through a cart load of wood...something is not right."  After reading the posts on here, I suppose I'm pretty much right in  line with everyone else in regards to wood usage.

I have a call in to a wood supplier and will be ordering up three full chords of wood...and hopefully I can get through to the end of February...and that's prolly pushing it, but better to pay someone for wood than pay the utility company for the gas.

I decided AGAINST pulling the lines up in the Spring.  I know that there is no leakage of ground water as even my well is down 160 feet.  The heat from the pex pipe is melting the snow on the surface of the ground.  The line is down 18"- 24".  It's going to stay there.  The only improvements that I will make will be to the OWB,  but in the Spring.

So yeah Jim...this is my first year and I'm still a "newbie" and there's nothing wrong with that as everyone on here at one time or another was a newbie.  If those that have been around here for a while thought that they knew all they had to know, then they would have left long ago, but I see there are many that have been members for quite some time, yet they are still here...why is this?  I think it's because they too never cease learning and also the fact that they have been in our shoes and they can explain things better to us than the dealers /salespeople for these OWB can or ever will.

Lugnut

[jimr]

lugnut,,, i'm with you on the lines, i feel mine are dry also and eventually with the help of the sun they will melt snow or frost, but it takes awhile.  i would think if the lines were water soaked the water temps would bleed off at a much faster rate and you would see it on milder days as well. on days like this my temp bleeds off very,very slowly as with wood use also.since 9/7/11 it ate just at 5 cords.