Need help with Itasca WB410 boiler

I recently bought this house, which has an oil furnace and also a wood furnace, and Itasca WB410. Last night I fired it up, and it did not behave the way I expected. Either I am doing something wrong (pretty likely) or something is broken. The boiler in question:




The only obvious control on the front is the thermostat on the left, with a chain going to a damper.



In the water lines going from the oil furnace to the wood furnace, there are two valves, one with a note on it:



The notes says that valve should be closed when the wood is fired. It seems pretty clear that the valve on the left needs to be open. It used to have a tag on it as well, but it is ripped off.

When I fired it up last night, I set the valves as stated. I don't think that water was flowing properly through the boiler. The thermometer on the front of the boiler pegged to the right, and the high pressure valve released, sending some hot water onto the floor.

It seems there must be another valve or switch somewhere that I am missing. There is a valve on the other water line on the back of the boiler, and that is open.

Any idea what is going on? The only other controls I see are under a cover on the front of the boiler, and look like this:

Kind of dumb replying to my own question, but I realized that I did not have the house thermostat set high. Does the house thermostat need to be turned up high when the wood furnace is going? (There are actually two thermostats in two parts of the house.)

PassionForFire&Water said:

I would think if you need to close one valve, then another valve should be opened.
Is there a circulator/pump somewhere?
Follow the pipes and see what the layout is.

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I believe the two green objects on the right in the below picture are circulating pumps, one for the two areas of the house (each on their own thermostat).
I did open the valve to the left of the one that I closed. It had a bit of a tag on it, but most of it was missing (no writing).

BoilerMan said:

When you had a fire going did you hear any pumps running? Generally there is a dedicated circulator for the wood boiler.

TS

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I only see the two green circulating pumps to the right of the boiler (seen in that last picture). It looks like the valve with the note on it forces the water to go through a loop (with the wood boiler in it) when it is closed that is otherwise bypassed. The pumps are quiet, but I think they were running at times. I'm not sure, actually, because I was trying different things. The two pumps are above that bypass valve.

It did seem like the water was not circulating like it does when the oil burner is going. I think it may just be because I had the house thermostats turned low.

I'm going to try it again tonight. I'll see what happens with the damper and such. Thanks for your help!

altmartion said:

it might not hurt, we are not sure ho the l6081a is wired or the zone pumps. it may need to be above low limit to activate the pumps. but sometimes they only wire the domestic pump to the low limit. but on the other hand it sounded like it was running away and boiling over. hopefully it's just air.

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When you say low limit, are you referring to the setting on this?



What should it be set at?

I've had a fire burning for a few hours. The gauges on the front look like this:


The low limit was at 200, I think, I turned it down low (around 120 or 140). It seemed to me like the water was flowing for a while. You can hear it go through the pipes, usually, when the oil burner comes on. But it seems like it stopped, and the radiators are cold. I have the upstairs thermostat set to 75, but it's about 59 in here. Those two little pumps seems like they are pumping (they are humming).



As I was writing this, the oil furnace just kicked on for a minute and then off again. That really seems like it shouldn't happen.

There's this gauge, not sure what it is:



Feeling like an idiot here. I ran a wood stove all last winter.

Just wanted to follow up on this with what I eventually figured out after endless mucking about. There are three valves that control flow between the wood furnace and the oil furnace. One of the valves (the one hardest to get at, almost hidden) that I believed to be open all the way was actually stuck in a partly open position. By jamming a screwdriver in the handle to gain leverage, I was able to break it free and open it completely. So now water is flowing properly and everything seems to be working as it should.

Thanks for the help and suggestions!