Noob with Questions

[HowlingMad]

There's probably a dozen of these in here somewhere, but I did honestly try to find the thread for noobs asking the same questions that have already been beaten to death. Please tell me if there's a better place for these types of questions.

Intent:
-Install a stand alone Harman SF 160 in my ~2000 sq ft shop using wood.

Background:
-Carpenter by trade with limited background in HVAC other than typical exposure. I'm comfortable with the basics of plumbing, but not heating (residential kitchen, bath installs, but no heat). I'd like to install this entirely myself if possible, and I would think with the help of a forum like this, I would be able to.

Environment
-~2000 sq ft shop
-~10 year old Harman SF160 (I think, need to find a tag tomorrow)
-three bays, all separate and insulated from each other.
-currently heat our 1200 sq ft house entirely with wood

Questions:
-stove pipe recommendations? I currently plan to use stainless, double-walled pipe. Height will be ~25' to cap.
-plumbing - too many questions, I'll need to come back to this later. This is the biggest unknown for me and I need to unpack the stove, study all the components and return with more questions.
-heat distribution - would love to use radiant, but not sure I have the time or the funds to sort this out right now (plus it would be a pour over type), so I'm thinking baseboard. Are there other options I should consider? How much will I need, where can I find more information on calculating this? Google told me to ask you.
-Placement of boiler - I have a clean slate here and although I don't want to dedicate too much floor space to this project, it seems wise to build a fireproof enclosure/surround to sleep better at night. Where can I find more information and ideas on this? What would you do differently if you could build a new area for your wood boiler?

That's probably enough for one night. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Tony H]

Well here goes some ideas. Thought maybe instead of base boards could use the fan forced hanging units similar to a modine .
I also would be inclined to build a room for the boiler using metal studs and fire rock drywall , I would also have 2 doors on the room one to the outdoors where the wood is located and the other into the shop.

 

[Nofossil]

Baseboards are good for about 600 BTU per foot - varies somewhat based on brand and style. Plan extra beyond your expected heat load to give you good recovery time and allow acceptable performance with cooler water.

The Modine style units pack a lot of heat transfer in a small package, but can be obtrusive and need cleaning in a shop environment. Don't always get heat into the corners, but can heat target area quickly.

Think about planning for storage, even if you have no intention of installing it now.

 

[HowlingMad]

...
I also would be inclined to build a room for the boiler using metal studs and fire rock drywall , I would also have 2 doors on the room one to the outdoors where the wood is located and the other into the shop.

Hmmmn, good stuff there. Gives me some ideas like adding a small annex for the boiler might make a lot of sense for a couple reasons, including fire prevention. I like the idea of adding another door.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

[HowlingMad]

Baseboards are good for about 600 BTU per foot - varies somewhat based on brand and style. Plan extra beyond your expected heat load to give you good recovery time and allow acceptable performance with cooler water.

The Modine style units pack a lot of heat transfer in a small package, but can be obtrusive and need cleaning in a shop environment. Don't always get heat into the corners, but can heat target area quickly.

Think about planning for storage, even if you have no intention of installing it now.

The modine suggestions sparked another question about heat generated from a wood boiler like the Harman. How much space could I expect to heat just from the boiler itself? In other words, if the Harman is in the main bay (24' x40' will it generated enough heat without a having to use the boiler part to heat that bay? I have no idea how efficient they are as far as heat lost. That might make a big difference whether I decide to build an addition to the building.

Thanks for the info on the Modine. I've never worked in a shop that had one and seemed warm at all.

 

[in hot water]

forced convectors are nice for quick warm up, but the hot air ends up on the ceiling and the floors are cold. They make a circular one that mounts in the center of the ceiling and blows straight down. Those work a little better to "wash" the entire floor with hot air. But they are all noisy, stratify the heat, and coat everything with dust.

Radiant ceilings are nice and easy to retro fit. I did a body shop with aluminum transfer plated mounted on the metal ceiling. Snapped pex al pex into the plates. Works nice, radiant heats all it can see from top down or bottom up.

It won't warm the slab like in floor radiant but it does heat the space. With ceiling radiant you can run 120- 130 °F supply as you are not concerned about limiting surface temperature like a radiant slab.

hr

 

[HowlingMad]

forced convectors are nice for quick warm up, but the hot air ends up on the ceiling and the floors are cold. They make a circular one that mounts in the center of the ceiling and blows straight down. Those work a little better to "wash" the entire floor with hot air. But they are all noisy, stratify the heat, and coat everything with dust.

Radiant ceilings are nice and easy to retro fit. I did a body shop with aluminum transfer plated mounted on the metal ceiling. Snapped pex al pex into the plates. Works nice, radiant heats all it can see from top down or bottom up.

It won't warm the slab like in floor radiant but it does heat the space. With ceiling radiant you can run 120- 130 °F supply as you are not concerned about limiting surface temperature like a radiant slab.

hr

That was one of my many plumbing questions, can I use the boiler to run radiant? I assume there is a way to mix this down somehow, but perhaps this is more involved than I want to start with.

 

[Gooserider]

Yes, you can do radiant with a wood boiler, you just need to add the right mixing valves and pump setups - it isn't really any harder than the alternatives...

One question on your use pattern - is this shop one that you use fairly constantly, or are you just in there once in a while? Does it need to have a stable temperature for the work you are doing, or can you tolerate fairly wide temperature swings?

Radiant is great for maintaining constant heat, but it is fairly slow for doing rapid warm-ups, so I would suggest radiant or baseboard if you need stable temps all the time, but modine type units if you are only there occasionally, but want fast heat when you are... Best of both worlds can be to have a radiant setup to keep a minimum temp, say 45-50°F, and modines to quickly heat it up the rest of the way... Note that unless you do glycol, which gets expensive fast, you will need to plan on staying above freezing at all times..

Do you have insulation under the existing floor? If not you will want to plan on adding some if doing a pourover setup - something like "Crete-heat" or other foam panel type stuff.

Gooserider

 

[Medman]

Also note that your boiler needs to be isolated from any volatiles/solvents you may use in your work. As a carpenter, I assume varnish, stain, thinners, strippers etc. This is a problem for me - boiler is in my shop, so any volatiles are off-limits. If need be, I hang plastic in the car bay next door and make a small heated envelope using electric heater, then remove heater and work quickly in cold weather. I plan to add a Modine-style unit in the car bay in the future for this purpose.

 

[HowlingMad]

Also note that your boiler needs to be isolated from any volatiles/solvents you may use in your work. ...

Very good point. I'll need to rethink where I store fuels now. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[HowlingMad]

Yes, you can do radiant with a wood boiler, you just need to add the right mixing valves and pump setups - it isn't really any harder than the alternatives...

One question on your use pattern - is this shop one that you use fairly constantly, or are you just in there once in a while? Does it need to have a stable temperature for the work you are doing, or can you tolerate fairly wide temperature swings?

Radiant is great for maintaining constant heat, but it is fairly slow for doing rapid warm-ups, so I would suggest radiant or baseboard if you need stable temps all the time, but modine type units if you are only there occasionally, but want fast heat when you are... Best of both worlds can be to have a radiant setup to keep a minimum temp, say 45-50°F, and modines to quickly heat it up the rest of the way... Note that unless you do glycol, which gets expensive fast, you will need to plan on staying above freezing at all times..

Do you have insulation under the existing floor? If not you will want to plan on adding some if doing a pourover setup - something like "Crete-heat" or other foam panel type stuff.

Gooserider

I can't seem to find a pattern to my shop usage. This year I expect to be out there almost every day, but for the last five years its been sporadic. I guess I need to go with the "once in a while" option. When I spoke of doing radiant, I was actually thinking of doing something different, something several plumbers have told me would be a waste. I was thinking about adding pex on top of the concrete with a thin reflective mylar barrier below. I would basically notch 5/8" subfloor to accommodate the pex and run a Pergo type floor over. The goal would be to raise the floor height no more than one inch. Plumbers have told me that it would lose too much heat to the ground, but I can't see a huge difference. Also, I wonder if I could get away with hotter temps if it wasn't in the concrete.

Can anyone see any issues with this approach?

Good to know that if it needs to be mixed down, that it's not totally different. Thanks Gooserider.

 

[ewdudley]

I would definitely go with the 'best of both worlds' approach. For a workspace especially it wouldn't take much floor heat at all to lower humidity, keep pipes from freezing, and make the floor so much more comfortable than it would be without it. Then add some baseboard heat or whatever to raise the temperature quickly for occupation.

I really like the low-mass radiant on top of existing concrete idea, but I can't find any information that would give me confidence in using the mylar foil bubble wrap stuff for this purpose. For another 3/4" or so you could have a 4-mil poly vapor barrier and a 1" closed cell foil-faced board, which would give you a known R-value of 5.0 or so, plus whatever the foil reflectivity and the fact that heat rises both add to the mix.

Disclaimer: I'm thinking of trying this down the road on top of some existing concrete workspace flooring and I think it would be great if I you could be talked into trying something similar first and then letting us know how it works out.

Cheers --ewd

 

[Gooserider]

Yes, you can do radiant with a wood boiler, you just need to add the right mixing valves and pump setups - it isn't really any harder than the alternatives...

One question on your use pattern - is this shop one that you use fairly constantly, or are you just in there once in a while? Does it need to have a stable temperature for the work you are doing, or can you tolerate fairly wide temperature swings?

Radiant is great for maintaining constant heat, but it is fairly slow for doing rapid warm-ups, so I would suggest radiant or baseboard if you need stable temps all the time, but modine type units if you are only there occasionally, but want fast heat when you are... Best of both worlds can be to have a radiant setup to keep a minimum temp, say 45-50°F, and modines to quickly heat it up the rest of the way... Note that unless you do glycol, which gets expensive fast, you will need to plan on staying above freezing at all times..

Do you have insulation under the existing floor? If not you will want to plan on adding some if doing a pourover setup - something like "Crete-heat" or other foam panel type stuff.

Gooserider

I can't seem to find a pattern to my shop usage. This year I expect to be out there almost every day, but for the last five years its been sporadic. I guess I need to go with the "once in a while" option. When I spoke of doing radiant, I was actually thinking of doing something different, something several plumbers have told me would be a waste. I was thinking about adding pex on top of the concrete with a thin reflective mylar barrier below. I would basically notch 5/8" subfloor to accommodate the pex and run a Pergo type floor over. The goal would be to raise the floor height no more than one inch. Plumbers have told me that it would lose too much heat to the ground, but I can't see a huge difference. Also, I wonder if I could get away with hotter temps if it wasn't in the concrete.

Can anyone see any issues with this approach?

Good to know that if it needs to be mixed down, that it's not totally different. Thanks Gooserider.

Reflective stuff under slabs, floors etc. seems to be about 98% scam... If you don't have insulation under the tubing you will expend a great deal of energy for very little heat... I believe there are ways one can do the insulation but it would raise the floor more like 2-3"... No matter what kind of heat you are planning however, you definitely need to plan on freeze protection if not running 24/7, which it sounds like you aren't going to want to do. This essentially means running glycol antifreeze. If doing glycol, storage is more of a challenge, as it is pretty cost prohibitive to put antifreeze into 500-1,000 worth of storage, so if you want to do storage, then the best approach is to insulate the heck out of it, so that it can keep for several days if not used, and use a water / water HX so that you only need to have antifreeze in the main plumbing... This makes things a bit more complex, but it would still be doable, and one could also just not bother with the storage...

Another option if not doing storage, which might actually work better for an intermittent heating situation, would be to get a wood furnace instead of the boiler, and heat with hot air - no worries about freezing, probably give you a faster warmup, and be a simpler install to just run ducts around the place...

Gooserider

 

[ewdudley]

For the usage pattern suggested, and using low-mass low-inertia flooring, there would be no need for storage or glycol. Just tighten the place up and scrounge up an old oil-fired or LP-gas water heater to keep the loops above freezing and to drive out moisture, and then fire up the boiler as appropriate.

Also it takes a surprisingly small amount of south-facing window area to keep a shop above freezing nearly all the time.

--ewd

 

[HowlingMad]

Thanks for all the input so far. I think my plan will be a two part process, redoing some of my original work, but staying married is important too. ;-) I'm supposed to be working on the kitchen in our house, but it holds less appeal than keeping my marbles from freezing this winter while I work on the stuff for the kitchen. Sooooo, I'm going to do a quicker install to get some heat out there for now by putting base board radiators in the two most commonly used bays. I've attached two pictures to help illustrate. Once the house is done and I'm not at risk of sleeping on the couch, I'll approach the radiant again.

The two outside bays would have the baseboard and the boiler would be in the center bay. I don't need a lot of heat in the center bay right now and it would be a lot to heat a space that big, so I'll focus on the two most commonly used spaces for now. I'm hoping the boiler will produce enough heat to keep the chill out of the main (center) bay.

Having said that, I could use some advice on baseboard radiators. I need to know how much I need and where to buy it. My local plumbing supply place supplies more attitude than parts or advice.

The two bays that will have heat are 12' x 32' and 12' x 40' with an average ceiling height of ~10'. If my math is correct, I arrive at 3840 and 4800 cubic feet respectively for each bay. How do I go about translating this to BTU's? or more importantly how much baseboard I need?

Thanks again for all the advice so far.

 

[Gooserider]

Not sure what the timing is on those photos, but if you haven't poured the floor yet, I'd put down a couple of inches of foam board and lay tubing before pouring the slab - you can't add tubing later, but it will cost relatively little to do it now..

Gooserider

 

[HowlingMad]

Not sure what the timing is on those photos, but if you haven't poured the floor yet, I'd put down a couple of inches of foam board and lay tubing before pouring the slab - you can't add tubing later, but it will cost relatively little to do it now..

Gooserider

Yeah, probably need a few screen doors and a roof too. I thought that might be misleading without some explanation, those photos were taken sometime ago and with the exception of insulation in the main bay and heat, it's just about finished.

I used those photos since they best illustrate the overall shape of the building.

 

[rkusek]

I wouldn't fret too much about not installing the infloor pex. I felt that way about my Morton 30x60x14 building a year ago. It should have been built in June but waiting for zoning changes and permits it wasn't started until November. It only took them about 5 days to build but the radiant floor went out the window because we needed the floor poured right away to make way for our travel trailer which was our temporary home while our new home was being built. If I had more time I would have layed out the floor myself with the pex.

How are you insulated? We insulated the walls with R-19 and the celing with R-38(was on sale at time). It wasn't until January that we actually hooked the EKO 40 up and finished the last part of the ceiling closing up the space. At this point I could no longer run the Propane furnace on the travel trailer anymore. The Modine style heater I bought on Ebay turned out to be rated much lower than what it was supposed to be (maybe 20k BTU) and couldn't do the job with the ceiling still open to exhaust the propane fumes. We ended up adding a homemade unit of our own using an old air conditioner condenser unit. Even though this is just 3/8" line running completely thru in just one pass it gave off a tremendous amout of heat. I changed out the fan motor to 120v version from Grainger but it would radiate a ton of heat with just water circulating through it. Actually, the fan runs too fast even on the low setting. I could have just layed a cheap box fan on top of it and saved $90. If I needed any more heat for the building, I could take the time to modify it to work like actual water to air heat exchanger by adding a 1 inch "hot" and 1 inch "return" manifold so the water flows hot in parallel simultaneously across the perimeter of the unit instead of just one long loop. I would guess it would generate at least 5 times more heat. We went from freezing our tails off in below zero weather in
December to 80 degrees and shorts in January. The concrete was actually pretty warm too which really surprised me. My 2 & 4 year old had a blast playing with their toys. The EKO idled a lot too. I would only throw a couple pieces of wood in at time when I was there and never filled it more than half full. Looking back, I think the insulation did more than anything else. We had a week of single digits just last week and the building is still over 35 degrees. I'm still working on plumbing to the new house so the boiler has not even ran yet. I'm guessing the heat from ground has something to do with that and will soon change. The insulation also made a big difference in the heat of summer since it was always comfortable inside. I don't have any windows except for one of the walk-in doors and I'm sure that is also a big reason. I would suggest not skimping on the insulation and you will find it won't take much to heat the space and I would keep it warm all the time especially if your burning wood. I think you will find yourself using the building a lot more if its warm all the time. The wood boiler/storage combo is a great way to do that minimizing your fire tending, it just takes time to get it all setup the way you want it.

 

[HowlingMad]

An update and more questions for your collective wisdom. In the interest of keeping it simple, I decided to go with standard baseboard heat in the two bays and hope that boiler makes enough heat for the third bay. I also decided to keep the boiler inside for simplicity.

My question is about the aquastat. I intend to set it up the same way it was used before, but some of the wires were disconnected before I got there so I'm not entirely sure how it works. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. I've looked for hours but I can't find anything on it. It's a White Rodgers 11A61-103, which is no longer supported.

I believe the aquastat was set up to open and close the damper only while the circulator pump was on a separate switch. The terminals on the aquastat are still connected to their original positions (I'll take a picture today) and still connected to the damper motor. What I can't understand is the three wires that used to connect somewhere. There is a white (neutral), black(hot?), and another black with tape marker (unknown).

So, what do I do with this combination of wires?

Thanks in advance.

 

[101x81]

we got almost the same shop, except both side bay are not heated and are 8x30 ft. i put my wood in the right one and i fill it right to the top. with an inside door near the boiler. the central part got 26x30 ft, 2 stories and pex running in the slab but my kerr tw2000 generate enought heat, 70f in the shop so i dont even have to run the system.
soon a tarm 40 will replace that kerr.

 

[Gooserider]

An update and more questions for your collective wisdom. In the interest of keeping it simple, I decided to go with standard baseboard heat in the two bays and hope that boiler makes enough heat for the third bay. I also decided to keep the boiler inside for simplicity.

My question is about the aquastat. I intend to set it up the same way it was used before, but some of the wires were disconnected before I got there so I'm not entirely sure how it works. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this for me. I've looked for hours but I can't find anything on it. It's a White Rodgers 11A61-103, which is no longer supported.

I believe the aquastat was set up to open and close the damper only while the circulator pump was on a separate switch. The terminals on the aquastat are still connected to their original positions (I'll take a picture today) and still connected to the damper motor. What I can't understand is the three wires that used to connect somewhere. There is a white (neutral), black(hot?), and another black with tape marker (unknown).

So, what do I do with this combination of wires?

Thanks in advance.

I would suggest working backwards from what you want to have happen to what it takes to make it so... Given the lack of support for that aquastat, the poor wiring, etc. I would be somewhat inclined to get rid of the existing aquastat and look at some of the more modern digital controls - maybe like the one SGScwend is using on his boiler. They seem easier to set up and offer more flexibility.

You have two major functions - the damper, which controls the boiler temperature, and the circulator(s) that distribute the heat.

Essentially you want the damper to open if the boiler is below optimal temperature and there is a call for heat. If there is no call for heat, you want the damper to stay closed, so as to let the boiler idle while consuming as little wood as possible (though this does make creosote) If the boiler gets to hot, regardless of whether you have a call for heat or not, you want the damper to close, and probably want the circulator to run in order to cool things back down.... Possibly, depending on how much air the fire gets in idle mode, you might need to open the damper periodically for a few minutes when idling just to keep the fire from dieing.

Not sure how the circ was controlled, but if I was guessing, your aquastat should have a high and low temp setting on it, or possibly a high, low and differential - and opened the damper when you hit the low number and closed it when you hit the high value. Black and white might be 110v power (assuming codes were followed, which is NOT a safe assumption) The third wire might be either a connection to a thermostat, or possibly a signal or power line to feed the circ... It might take some detective work w/ a multi-meter, and or examining the wiring inside the unit to figure that out.

Possibly if you posted a closeup picture of the existing wiring and identified any labeling on the terminals some of our experts could tell you what the proper hookups for the existing aquastat are.

Have you verified that the damper motor is 110VAC?

Gooserider

 

[101x81]

may be this can help you with your aquastat

http://www.boilerroom.com/wwwboard/home4/14112.shtml

 

[HowlingMad]

Thanks for the replies, I think Gooserider cleared up a few things for me. I'm not sure what I was thinking by manually controlling the circ pump, but after getting the boiler fired for the first time yesterday, I realized why it was important that it not be running when the boiler runs out of heat. I also took the advice to probe with a meter a bit and try to figure out how it worked. I had done this before a bit, but you really need some temp to understand how the aquastat runs. After playing with it I think I figured it out. The striped wire seems to be the aquastat switched power for the circulator pump. Seems so simple now. Ironically, while writing this post I noticed that it even says "circ" on the right side or low limit side.

I still haven't figured out what the little screw adjustment is on the low limit side. It adjusts the smaller marker that sits in the 11 o'clock position in the attached photo. The screw is in the 12 o'clock position on the circulator side. Anyone know what this is?

Also, thanks for the find WoodEater. I did come across that link in my searches as well, but the letters they mention are Greek to me. I think they may be referring to a different unit. Tell me if I missed something.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[Gooserider]

Still guessing, but I'd guess that the little indicator is probably the "differential" or hysteresis adjustment... The basic concept is that you don't want a single point where switching occurs which ever way the temperature is changing, as this would result in constant cycling as the temperature goes above and below that point. So you would need a difference between the "turn on" and "turn off" points. Since that little pointer is on the low limit side, and is pointing to a higher temperature than the big pointer, my guess would be that it is saying turn on at the little pointer when the temperature is rising, and turn off when the temperature drops below the big pointer, as a circulator control...

It does seem to me like the numbers on the right side dial don't make sense in terms of being for a LOW limit, since they are currently both higher than the high limit setting on the right, and the little pointer is above boiling, which higher than I would consider safe under almost any condition.

Going WAY out on the guessing here - power to the aquastat controlled by a remote thermostat

No call for heat - no power to boiler, damper closes, system at idle.

Call for heat - power goes to boiler, damper opens as long as temperature below setting on high limit dial (left side in pic, currently about 170°F)

If boiler temp lower than little pointer setting, leave circ off, allow fire to warm boiler

If boiler temp above little pointer, turn on circ, run until heat load satisfied (which would kill power to the entire system) or boiler temp drops below big pointer. When boiler drops below big pointer, turn off circ, leave damper open - if the circ has been pulling more BTU's than the boiler can provide, but you still have fire, this gives the boiler a chance to catch up again. If the fire is out (no fuel, etc) then it keeps you from circulating cold water....

If boiler goes above high limit setting, turn off damper, keep circ running... Presumably there would be some preset amount the boiler would need to cool before the stat would allow the damper to open again, since there doesn't seem to be an adjustment for that side.

Does this make sense in terms of the existing wiring? It seems to judging from the way the cables seemed to be running in your previous pic of the entire boiler...

Gooserider

 

[HowlingMad]

Still guessing, but I'd guess that the little indicator is probably the "differential" or hysteresis adjustment... The basic concept is that you don't want a single point where switching occurs which ever way the temperature is changing, as this would result in constant cycling as the temperature goes above and below that point. So you would need a difference between the "turn on" and "turn off" points. Since that little pointer is on the low limit side, and is pointing to a higher temperature than the big pointer, my guess would be that it is saying turn on at the little pointer when the temperature is rising, and turn off when the temperature drops below the big pointer, as a circulator control...

It does seem to me like the numbers on the right side dial don't make sense in terms of being for a LOW limit, since they are currently both higher than the high limit setting on the right, and the little pointer is above boiling, which higher than I would consider safe under almost any condition.

Going WAY out on the guessing here - power to the aquastat controlled by a remote thermostat

No call for heat - no power to boiler, damper closes, system at idle.

Call for heat - power goes to boiler, damper opens as long as temperature below setting on high limit dial (left side in pic, currently about 170°F)

If boiler temp lower than little pointer setting, leave circ off, allow fire to warm boiler

If boiler temp above little pointer, turn on circ, run until heat load satisfied (which would kill power to the entire system) or boiler temp drops below big pointer. When boiler drops below big pointer, turn off circ, leave damper open - if the circ has been pulling more BTU's than the boiler can provide, but you still have fire, this gives the boiler a chance to catch up again. If the fire is out (no fuel, etc) then it keeps you from circulating cold water....

If boiler goes above high limit setting, turn off damper, keep circ running... Presumably there would be some preset amount the boiler would need to cool before the stat would allow the damper to open again, since there doesn't seem to be an adjustment for that side.

Does this make sense in terms of the existing wiring? It seems to judging from the way the cables seemed to be running in your previous pic of the entire boiler...

Gooserider

Very interesting, I went out to experiment with it yesterday and wound up re-wiring it from my original plan and I think I now have it where I need it to run the basics. Some of your ideas get the wheels turning for future plans, but let me attempt to spell out what I know so far.

After screwing around with a meter for a while, I figured out what opened and what closed. The gauge kept throwing me off, so I decided to simply write down some logic statements to help me digest it. Mind you, I have never seen one of these before so its been a learning experience. Ironically, after all that, I decided to look at the back cover and naturally there was an explanation of how it works on the back. It's a little cryptic and it doesn't explain several questions I still have, but it does spell out the wiring. I've included a picture of the instructions, but here's what it says:

Left side:
"Limit Control (Damper) - Open on Rise (in temperature)"

Right Side:
"Low Limit Circulator - Double Throw. Red:Common. Blue: Open on Rise. White: Close on Rise. Close on Rise.(redundant?)

If you look at the previous picture, you can make out some colors (better than you can in person). GooseRiders question about the circ pump side seemed to throw me as well, but I think it's just the way the information is presented. It kept my brain from registering it for a while, but it simply keeps the circuit open until the temperature desired is reached. It then closes the circuit turning on the pump. In theory, they pump should be off when I go out this morning (assuming it's cold).

I made a few other observation as well, that may be worth noting in case someone stumbles upon this thread later looking for information on this aquastat. The limit control, or damper side opens and closes within 10 degrees plus or minus of the desired temperature. For example, if you select 170 on the dial, it will open the damper when the boiler gauge hits 160 and close it at 180. I don't seem to find any of the adjustment in this and it is consistent no matter what temperature is selected.

I still have a few question for the those still following this thread:
-Still trying to figure out the screw gauge on the circ side. It doesn't seem to have any effect that I can observe.
-Can I control the temperature of the stove using anything other than the aquastat? It appears that once the aquastat is set, the burner always makes the same temperature range. (although I'm not using them, I did plumb in Taco 571's in each zone should I wish to install a thermastat.)

Some of the answers to this might be in Gooserider's detailed explanation above, but I haven't fully digested it yet. I'm still on my first cup of coffee.

Thanks again for all the help.

P.S. It's up to 61 degrees in my shop. Thanks to all of you, I have heat in my shop for the first time in 4 very cold New England winters. Thanks!