I have an Empyre 250 and have used it for two winters. I have a brand new home and have unfortunate but very serious heating issues within the house. They are not a result of the boiler but rather very shoddy heating installation. I went through 18 cords and that's full cords last year alone heating my 2000sqft home. I have my boiler approximately 75' from my house and run 1" pex for my supply and return, thats bubble wrapped and inside drain pipe. The pipe is only 2' underground but really there wasn't a significant snow melt from heat loss. The boiler unit is a knock off or clone to the ripple top design of the central boiler. The unit is well made and short of the possible problems with the underground lines, was definately a great investment. My first year of use was just heating the house while the contractor was finishing the inside. That year alone I burnt approx. 10 cords of hardwoods, 1.5 ton of mine run coal, and TWO 200gallon propane tanks full of propane. That was when it was very evident that there were serious issues with the inside heat.
We are still working to understand the problems and are trying to figure them out. Until then I work on cutting my firewood for this winter like a colony of ants preparing for winter. I already have 7.5 cords cut, split, and stacked, and 4 more cut waiting to be split. Even though I have spent considerable time cutting wood to heat my house, I would never have been able to heat it with propane. I would have had over $4000 in propane alone for the entire year. Especially since I heat my domestic hot water with my heating system. So the outside boiler may be labor intensive but it at least has saved me a considerable amount of money.
Thanks
Ray
