I'm not losing sleep over it.
I put a small dent in mine when we moved it into place. It added a little character to the boiler, it in my opinion.
I went over the boiler install with my installer and there are a few out-lying decisions to be made:
1. How the heck do we connect this to the masonry chimney? My masonry thimble is 7", so I will need a 6-7 adapter. I need to know how my horizontal run will work out to place the boiler and really get to work. My ceiling is within 12" of the top of the stove pipe. So I need something to reduce clearances. Double wall, screw on shield? Wood Gun says I need stainless. I just can't seem to find the perfect solution.
In my basement I first installed the pipe coming out of the Ash cyclone the way AHS said to do it. That was a mistake. I ran the standard stove pipe up vertical, then horizontal and over to my double wall insulated pipe that went through the wall thimble. Too much heat loss that resulted in too low of stack temps at the top of the 27 feet of chimney. That too low of stack temp resulted in creosote forming. Too much flat run that resulted in ash and creosote forming in those pipe sections. I changed this as soon as I could afford it. Late in the season last Feb./March. I instead continued the double wall insulated pipe down at an angle using two 30Deg. bends and some straight pipe to get me to within about 13 inches of the top of the ash cyclone.
This resulted in much higher stack temperatures further up the chimney and no more creosote problems. As well as any ash slides back down the pipe and into the ash collector. So now when I take the pipe apart inside the house there is nothing in it. I will take some pictures tonight of the new and post them with some pictures of the old to show you what I mean. I would try not to be putting your pipe flat. You can hold your hand within an inch of the double wall insulated pipe and leave it there forever. No worries. You can not with the regular stove pipe. This would also reduce the amount of pipe that is close to your ceiling. The supplier you buy the insulated pipe from should be able to hook you up with the right adaptors. Do as much as you can in double wall, insulted. S.S. You will not regret it. I could have saved some money if I had went with it the first time. I was trying to save some money by going the route that AHS said to go.
That did not work.
2. Controls. The Wood Gun seems to be able to "run itself" and nothing more. We will need to add a relay to activate the circulator pump when there is a call for heat.
Mine is set up so that whenever the boiler is above 175
the first circ pump kicks on to send the hot water to my buffer tank. Then whenever any zone calls for heat another circ pump kicks on to draw water out of the top of the tank and/or the boiler from a T that is just before the tank on the line that feeds into the tank.
3. Workshop zone. I need to leave a provision to add my zone for my out-building. We will probably just leave a full size port in the manifold on both supply and return. This should let us figure out the specifics later.
Sounds like you have that all set.
ac