Inherited an OWB/heat system mess !!!

This will be a years long saga/fix .
Inherited my parents house.
My dad was an el cheapo and know it all ( couldn't tell him anything,wouldn't read anything and refused education ).I practically shock the head off my shoulders over the years in disbelief of the way he did things. Loved him as he was and he moved on to a better place last Oct .
Anyway the system history.
CB 6048
110' run to house. Supposedly he put in the good stuff that CB recommended ,,,,, buuut he only buried it 12" . Once in the house the pipe is uninsulated and runs on the floor of a crawl space for 50' before entering hot water tank. The heat loss when set at 150 is 38 degrees!!!!! Snow will melt off the first half of the outside run when the outside temp is above 20 . Water quite frequently lays on the first half of the run and this will be the first and cheapest fix I tackle. I've read that water around lines pulls heat away at a rapid rate .
The next will be putting the 50' of inside pipe in drain tile and spray foaming and possibly getting off the dirt crawl space floor by hanging to floor joists. I hope these 2 fixes will make a big improvement in heat loss .
The last part I may or may not completely tackle is the baseboard and supply to baseboard . The basement ceiling is the biggest maze looking clustastrophe of piping I've ever seen and in a couple spots where I'm guessing there had been a leak or burst pipe over the years he soldered on fittings and spliced with hydraulic hose !!!!!!
Keeping in mind I'm about 90% sure I will only live here for maybe 5 years and the house is likely going to be sold to Amish (they are moving into my neighborhood rapidly and paying big $ for old houses with land ) which won't care about this type heating system ,,, what would you OWB experts do ??
We are not yet moved into house ( keeping boiler set at 150) and this winter we have had all the ceilings removed and added 8R insulboard to the 4" of existing fiberglass which I don't think has slowed wood consumption.
I've supplied the wood for this house for 20 years and the last 4 I've had to feed the boiler myself due to dads deteriorating health. I have never measured wood usage but if I had to guess 15 cord in a mild winter 20 plus in a bad winter to heat only the down stairs which is around 1600 sq ft .
I have an excavator and am pretty handy with anything carpentry.Plumbing not so much but willing to learn.
What say you ?
My first but not only goal is to lower wood consumption . Even though I get free and close to free processed (not much if any splitting is necessary due to loading door size) wood I still have to load a massive amount of wood daily.

 

38 degrees is mind boggling. I lose less than a degree round trip 150' through 2 heat exchangers.

Get the uninsulated pipe off the crawl floor by hanging from the joists. Put some of that gray foam slip on insulation around it. I wouldn't bother with spray foam.

Next you need to get the water away from the buried pipe. You don't have 'the good stuff" because the good stuff is waterproof. If you can dig it up and put a French drain under it that would be good. If you can keep it dry that will save a ton of wood. If you were going to stay there for a while I'd say replace it...but this will be a lot better than nothing.

 

Just to add.... if the heat demand can be satisfied with 122 degree water I wouldn't mess with the baseboard supply.

 

Sell it to the Amish now! Before you spend time and money on it.

 

I agree.
I have 15 ton of 2b and filter fabric left over from a foundation project last fall. This will be a quick easy project come spring.
My plan is to go 12" deeper than wherever I find the heat line to be. The house sits on a hill and the grade of a parallel driveway to the heat line is about 6' lower so this will take very little work and materials and I can incorporate some further yard drainage into the project .
I do have some of the crawl space line (maybe 10-15%)covered with the slip on insulation and 1/2 of it is suspended or has some scrap insulboard between dirt and it.
Even the outside of the slip on insulation is warm to touch so I'm not sure how much that is helping. I have some other spray foam projects that need done so it may happen . There is so much competition here in the SF business they have it down to $.70/sq ft for 1 1/2".
When I built my shop 15 years ago I paid $2.20 !!!!!

 

I have considered that BUT ,,,,, my property is adjacent and my business requires the 15 acres both houses and 2 shops sit on.
I even considered selling with a 5 year lease on the property so I can ingress/egress equipment storage and processing but I just don't think it will fly without problems

 

112 but house temp is 58-61 now with boiler set at 150. The last few years my dad needed it 85+ in house due to health and it sucked wood like a $5k hooker.
Stage 1 of my plan is to tackle drainage and crawl space line before next winter and see if there's a difference before I do anything else.
I'm also going to have to heat the upstairs (which hasn't been for many years) if my 26 yo daughter doesn't remove her head from azz which will increase heat load about 30-40%.
This house is 71' long.
There's one zone I'd like to eliminate and put in a heat exchanger. It has an approximate lineal footage of around 170' half or more in crawl space uninsulated. For some reason in 1979 when the original indoor wood boiler system went in 45* copper fittings were tabboo which made for much longer runs.
If my business sells which is a possibility then all mods are off and I'm outta here.

 

I don't think you will see much improvement if you don't replace the underground pipe all together.

 

This answer I think. I'd be tempted to price the good pex line from the boiler all the way through the crawl space. Might be worth it. 38 degrees is unbelievable!

 

When I put in tile/stone this spring I'll see what kind of pex/insulation is in the ground and go from there. A kid that works for me part time does carpenter work on the side . I'm going to have him hang and insulate the crawl space lines in the next few weeks . I'm going low cost remedies till I've exhausted all options. Staying there less than 5 years is keeping me from sinking $ into the place. There's easily 5 years worth of wood on site so even if it runs inefficiently it's not a big deal. My goal is to cut down on the amount I load in this beast.

 

Can you get a picture of it where it enters the ground?

 

If it's thawing the ground above it I can't believe it's good pex.

 

Definitely not, I'd say.

 

Rip it out, put it on CL. Install a decent but inexpensive stove, one that the anticipated Amish buyer would appreciate. Sell in 5 years. Done.

 

I thought the Amish loved owb's? they all have owb's in Wisconsin.

 

How do they power the pumps? Around here they all run stoves or some will use a wood or coal furnace set up to be able to gravity heat (no blower, just a big vent(s) in the floor(s))

 

My busy season started about 6-8 weeks early this year. Lost track of this thread. I dug some tile ditch to connect into but not along the heat lines . The water table is only 8" below top of ditch. I gotta believe drainage is going to make a massive improvement.
I've been waiting for it to dry up some so I don't tear up lawn so bad.
I got to thinking when I was a kid we heated this whole place with a royal hot water boiler in the basement and it did just fine on a lot less wood but more handling and splitting .
Another month and the spring rush will be over . I should get some free time to get some of this project done

 

Dug up the pipe Sunday . Picked up drain tile yesterday . Got in the trench tonight to level the bed. It was cold last night so a fire was still going in boiler . 127 boiler temp.
Pipe was 73-86
Ground temp was 60-66
Scratching head at this point.
I didn't expect pipe temp to be that high.

 

Pipe temp inside the insulation should've been within 1 or 2 degrees of the boiler water temp. What's the temp going into the building? Where on the pipe did you measure the 73 degree temp? On the black wrap it should be whatever ambient temp is or very close.

 

Temp was outside of black wrap.
Outside air temp was 70 and cloudy.
Didn't get an inside pipe temp