Wow.. Thank you all for the great replies. I'll go into my situation with a little more detail, but I too believe that the lines I'm using are the main problem.
My house is 1,980 square feet. Currently I am only heating the main level, but in time will be finishing the basement so that will be double. My boiler has a pump on the supply side and also another pump that circulates water from bottom to top inside the boiler. I added one more pump inside the house on the return side to help give it a boost due to the long distance.
I did not add a gas boiler inside the house. The outdoor is the only heating source I have. I use two zones, one for the front section of the house and the other for the back section. (ranch style house) I added a pressure valve on the manifold. If neither zones are calling for heat then the water has enough pressure to open this valve which then just runs through the manifold and then back out to the boiler for my loop. If a zone opens then there is not enough pressure to open the valve so the water runs through the open zone heating the house. This works really well.
I was concerned that the water running through my loop when neither zone was open, was wasting energy. I figured seeing that I had a pump on the boiler that circulated the water inside the boiler that I didn't need the loop to be constantly running at all time, only when a zone opened. But if it common practice to leave all the pumps running all the time then I am fine with that.
As for the blower flapper, mine came with a turnbuckle so I am able to adjust the flapper to allow more or less air. When the aquastat calls for heat the blower kicks on and the fire rages pretty well. Some have said open the flap as far as possible so the fire gets going faster and other have said no keep it minimal so the fire slowly burns during the heating process. Right now my blower kicks on about every 10 mins or so. I suspect this is due to the poor line insulation. Each time it snows, the snow quickly melts where the lines are ran and its very soggy in that area as well.
I order truckloads of of logs. I have found logs last a little longer than split wood. I started out last year getting split wood and was going through a cord of wood every 2 weeks. If I was to spit the load of logs I would have about 7 cords of wood per load. Last year I burned 20 cords of wood, but the first 4 were spit. The majority of wood is ash and other hard wood, but it isn't fully seasoned.
The coal I was using was Anthracite. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to keep it lit during the day, but once I did I really like using it. Was pretty nice just going out and adding a few shovel loads and not having to cut and stack wood. But the local supplier went out of business and it was easier to just have more wood delivered. I plan on looking for a new supplier this summer and trying it again. I found that after I load it with coal, simply adding 1 piece of wood on top kept it from going out.
There have been a few nights when it's been 0-5 deg outside and I can't get the house to heat more than 66 deg. I did a heat loss before I installed the system so I know I have the right amount of baseboard in the house. Where I live we use a -5 deg base when we do our calculations. When I know it's going to be a cold evening I turn the water temp up to around 190 (normally keep it at 180) and that seems to help some but again I suspect I'm losing a lot of heat in the buried lines.
My plan this summer is to enclose the boiler and change the lines to a larger, more insulated set.
Any suggestions on a good set of lines I should be looking for? I have found where some have aluminum wrap (5 wrap) and some have the foam wrapped around them with 4" pipe protecting them. Now that I am getting good advice, I don't mind spending the money on the things I need to do.
Thank you all again for the feedback. And let me know if there is any other information you need. Like I said, I love this boiler and looking very forward to getting it working properly.
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