OWB lines thawing the ground.

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jhellwig

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It is making a mess of the yard. Outside temp is 46 ground temp under the inch of snow left is 38, ground clean of snow is froze below 32 and right over the lines is 48. There is a path of melted snow from the owb to the shade by the house. I have never seen it do this before but in the 2 years that we have had the thing it has been goofy winters. I do believe that the piping underground is very possible uninsulated in a 6 inch conduit. It is buried around 4 foot deep in the melting area. There is insulation on the pipes coming out of the conduit to the pumps and into the house but I believe that it is just that cheap slip over stuff. I know this was never the most efficient setup but this is idiotic. I was never very impressed with the setup to begin with.

Anyone else have this problem?
 
j--more people have talked about it on other threads---and they have said you need to insulate the pipes in the conduit--you just hadnt noticed it other years----and--from what they have said--your loosing a lot of heat out of the pipes---so--hot water on top to thaw---and tear it apart--or wait till spring to tear it apart--id wait--and check the search function for what people recommend for pipes--believe someone is selling the stuff in ten foot sections--already tightly insulated--
 
As stated there is nothing wrong with red pex, as a matter of fact it would make no difference at all what kind of lines they are if they are not insulted correctly and perhaps important kept dry. My set up is new this year and we have had a VERY mild winter here until the last week. We had a skif of snow that took a day to melt and I watched closely where my lines are buried 50' to the house and there was absolutely no difference and Mine are only 24" deep. As a matter of fact I got behind for time and made a temporary run to my shop of about 15' that is in std electrical conduit about 24" deep with no insulation and the snow didn't melt above that run either. Fix your insulation and make sure the conduit is sealed from ground water and you wont loose heat in the piping. I am beginning to believe what I read about these OWBs being terribly inefficient but not by design, from shoddy installations.
 
sounds like your six inch pipe

Might be full of ground water.. and that water is wicking the heat out of the pipes
 
This reminds me of when I attended Stockbridge School of Agriculture in Amherst,MA. You could tell where all the steam lines were underground as there was green grass all winter. Had never seen this before.
 
I duno if the conduit got a leak in it or not. We put the pipe in ourselves. I guess I just took it for granted that the pipes were insulated or something. I have been toying with the idea of redoing the whole system elctricaly to give a better control over it. Guess I need to do the piping also. For the price it cost for the yahoo to install the dang thing I just thought it would have been better. If I was around when he installed it I would have made sure it was done better.
 
here is the pipe i sell and as you can see no meltin' of the ground or snow on it(at 16df outside today)less than 2 degree heat loss in 100ft....bwalker has trouble with his meltin' the ground but as you can see mine doesn't...logstor is the brand
 
Let me ask you this, Did you splice the lines anywhere underground? if so, you might have a leak. Is your boiler using excess water?
I used a simular set up as yours. I put it about 3 ft. deep with sand and sawdust in the trench for more insulation.

Depending on how long of a run you have, It doesn't take all that long to install the pipe ( correctly) once you get the trench dug. Just go to the local sawmill and get a truck load of sawdust, SOme insulated pipe like in the picture in the above post ( or make your won with 6" corrugated pipe and sprayfoam insulation. Put 1"pex pipe inside the corrugated pipe and spray in the foam. Let it dry and put it in the trench cover it with more sawdust/sand and cover it up. That is how I did it and I only lose about 1 degree in a 40 ft. run.
 
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Ok dont you ever use sawdust, it will get so water loged its not even funny.

If you want good pipe spend the money. My Micro-flex is the best around it loses about 1 deg every 100 ft, closed cell pex foam. It flexs better then the "spray foam pipe" plus it a pretty blue color....LOL
11.00 bucks a foot.
 
Ok dont you ever use sawdust, it will get so water loged its not even funny. .

You are correct but i forgot to mention lining the trench with a large single piece of plastic then adding the sand and sawdust and wrapping the whole thing with the same single piece of plastic then the dirt on top of that..
I did this when i installed my wood eating OWB. When i finally got lucky enough to find someone to buy it 4 years later, I dug up the lines to re-use with my indoor boiler in my garage and the sawdust and sand was STILL dry as a bone. To eash his own i guess though.
 

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