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[mwvwaw]

Question?  I have 2000 sq/ft house insulation is not great but not bad, I have a Earth Rancher 365 about 50' from the house with insulated 1" pex lines buried in the ground about 18" in southeast Virginia.  This is my first season using it and I love it, but how is it that folks get such a long burn time??  Last night was very unusual in that the temp with wind chills got down to -5!  My water temp is set for on at 160 degrees and off at 170 degrees and the thermostat inside the house is set on 72 degrees.  The temp inside was 72 degrees but when I got up this morning at 5:00 the water temp outside was 105 degrees, this was after about 7 hours.   I am burning smaller pieces of wood because they were cut for my wood stove inside.  Is the size of the wood the problem?  Is the water temp on off the problem?  or is this what I am to expect.   

Just looking for some guidance!!

Thanks for all your help, I love this forum!!!

[slimjim]

I would start by getting some larger wood for those cold nights.

[mwvwaw]

Thanks slimjim,

What do you think about the water temperature settings?

[slimjim]

Go with manufacturers suggestions, we run ours at 190 + with no more than a 10 degree differential, I'm not a rep for your stove and shouldn't comment on it's high temp setting, most folks run a lot lower temps than we because they believe they burn to much wood at the higher temps, we like the higher temps because at lower temps we can get condensation happening in the heat exchanger but it's because of our very low stack temps. typically we see 270f with our gassers, conventional stoves can be over 1000f

[Speed]

Mwvwaw, another factor here, you never said what kind of wood you are burning. There is a huge difference from pine to oak, hard maple, or white ash. Size does matter, but the wood type also plays a huge difference, more btu species will burn hotter and slower.

[jrider]

My first year with my owb, I had stove/fireplace pieces only and didn't have any troubles when the weather got cold. 

[mwvwaw]

Speed,

Your right, its all 2 year old oak that has been under shelter!

[fryedaddy]

I'd start by adding larger pieces of wood.

If you're running your heat through your hvac I'd run higher temperatures.
It probably casts more to run your fan than the extra wood you would be burning.

[ecc_33]

Good wood like oak, walnut, elm, osage orange, etc will last longer and bigger pieces or decent sized rounds. I usually throw in a couple decent sized rounds when I know i won't be home for several hours.

[mwvwaw]

Fryedaddy,

How much do you think I should increase my water temperature by!

[fryedaddy]

I'm not sure what your manufacturer recommends but mine says 185 degrees.

Burn it hot and you shouldn't have to worry about as much mess.

[victor6deep]

I've been there before. I ran 170-180 and would be out of wood by morning. I now run 150-165 and have half a firebox full of wood in the morning. Heats the house easily but I am running a lot of gpm.

[mwvwaw]

Thanks for all the help!!!

[willieG]

not sure what your estimate for btu usage is  but i know i have a 1 floor home of 1200 square feet On electric heat (i know that sucks)  and for last night it used in the area of 12 btu per square foot averaged over 24 hours. so if you said you were using about the same average  you would require 2000 x 12 btu = 24,000 btu per hour (for the next 12 hours would be) x 12 =288,000 btu to heat your home for 12 hours...now lets say your stove is 70 percent efficent..you would need another 86,400 so add them together ...374,400 btu required in the furnace....now about 6000 btu per pound of wood...374,400 divided by 6,000 = 62.3 pounds of wood for that 12 hour burn this would change if your btu need were more but you can see where i am going with this...how many pounds of wood do you burn overnight...remember the 6000 btu per pound is wood at about 20 percent moisture (considered dry) these are all just averages but shuld give you something to go by