propane line not buried

kurtk84

I have a wall mounted propane heater, and the gas line it it is laying on top of the ground, roughly 30 feet of copper line. Aside from the obvious danger of it getting ruptured, I've been told this somehow makes the appliance use more gas. Is this true? I rent the house, and am not responsible for the sloppy installation, but if it'll save me some propane, I would gladly go through the trouble of burying it. This heater works great, but it uses about 15 gallons a week....seems extreme to me.

Gordy

The math

How many btus is the heater rated for?



How many hours a week is it on? Is it on a thermostat?



How big of a space is it heating? How well insulated is it?



15 x 91500 btus = 1372500 btus a week that's at 100% efficiency



That's 196071btus a day or 2.14 gal



Or 8170 btus an hour if running constantly.thats .09 gallons per hour.



Don't know if that's good or bad with out knowing the fore mentioned info.



I would guess you either have a huge heater, or a poorly insulated space with a high set point. Or both.



I highly doubt your using more gas because it's not buried unless you have a leak. If you do have a leak it would not make a difference buried or not.



Around here code is 12" deep.

icesailor

Buried LP Lines:

12"  depth and "protected". Like in a sleeve or a covered copper line. I've never heard of a code that allowed you to just place a copper gas line in top of the ground where someone could trip over it.

As far as excessive use, you need a professional that knows what they are doing to figure it out.

Depending on how cold it is, it doesn't seem to be all that much. Wall heaters are not always very efficient unless it is like a Rannai or Bosch.