natural gas - burners?

[mathprofdk]

Hi all,

I've gotten some great advice in this thread (http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?t=12508) about next year's evaporator, and I've got lots of ideas floating around. One suggestion was to use natural gas, since I'm in the Chicago suburbs and wood can be tough to come by and store in a 50x150 lot (I do have a pallet source and am considering this).

Is this going to be prohibitively expensive? Am I just better off scrounging for pallet lumber?

If I went this route, what would you use for burners? Just take apart an old stove? Would have give you enough BTUs? My propane turkey fryer supposedly gives off roughly 170,000 BTUs, and it looks like stove burners only give of about 10,000. Seems like a bad idea. Maybe from an old furnace or water heater? Any other ideas?

I do have some sources - my neighbor owns an HVAC company and has expressed a willingness to look out for whatever we decide we want. He can be bribed with syrup. :D

Thanks!
~DK

[Kev]

a water heater burner puts out less btu's than your turkey frier.
I picked up a used natural gas boiler burner for a residential furnace. that can be adjusted from 80,000 to 300,000 btu's per hour.(mine was free :) )
its good sized for a residential unit. the house it came out of is over 5000 sq ft.
your neighbor should be able to help you do the same either the bigger single burner for a hot water boiler or the multiple burners from a forced air furnace are the direction you will want to go, IF you decide on natural gas.
I looked at one of the burners I scavenged from some scrap... its a burner for a small grain dryer that goes on a grain bin (not the big batch or continuous flow dryers). it is WAY to big for anything I can imagine needing its either 2 or 3 million btu's per hour ...

[markct]

pipe burners are what you need, you can buy them or just buy the ends that mix the air and drill your own, i bought mine for my finish pan from charles hones company, there phone numb is 607-273-5720 and talk to rob, they are great to deal with and can tell you exactly what you need for your application

[Kev]

pipe burners are what you need, you can buy them or just buy the ends that mix the air and drill your own, i bought mine for my finish pan from charles hones company, there phone numb is 607-273-5720 and talk to rob, they are great to deal with and can tell you exactly what you need for your application

so if I call him up and tell him I want to build a 2 x 6 arch and add a extra pan to my 2x4 and tell him what kind of 2x4 i have. He knows exactly how many btu's I need per hour for max efficency?