Steamhood question

[heus]

I recently received my steamhood and preheater from A&A Metal Shop through Ray Gingerich. My question is do you guys that have a 2x6 or similar size evaporator install a pulley system on your steamhood to raise and lower it when needed? It has two six inch stacks, one for the syrup pan and one for the flue pan.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Raising the hood is the easy part. its getting a good system to also raise the pipes or have them telescope inside one another so the hood can be raised. I have a short stack that i push up and over and hook with a bunji cord, My hood is like a funny car body real lite I can just pick it up and carry it away.

[heus]

Haynes,
I plan on doing just that with the telescoping pipes.

[Jim Schumacher]

I wish I had some good pictures of the "Strap Stacks" I invented. They are typically 3' long. Picture a hose clamp the diameter of the stack by 3' long. They strap around the stack hub on the hood and the next section of stack pipe. These are simply removed allowing three feet of air space between the hoods and the the next stack section.

[maple flats]

I have a winch and pulley system to raise my hood. I have a pulley directly above each of 4 suspension points. A light wt. SS cable runs from each corner, up to the ceiling pulley, then they are all routed so my one winch mounted on the end wall of the sugarhouse lifts it all. Very easy. Even my 7 yr old (at the time) grand daughter lifted it when requested with no training. For my steam stack, I have a 10" going up off the hood for 4', I then have an 8 inch stack suspended from in the cupola and it hangs down inside the lower stack. When I raise the hood, the lower just rides up over the upper one. Even with the 2" difference in stack sizes I get almost zero steam out between them. Notice also that my upper stack terminates about 2/3 of the way IN the cupola. When the cupola is opened the steam all goes out. This method gives me the ability to raise the hood about over 3' with no obstruction. I actually have 2 such steam stacks but I now think one would have been enough. The suspended ones are just hanging on a rod that passes thru the center from one side to the other. I can raise the hood until the lower stack reaches the support rods. My sugarhouse ceiling is 10' above the floor to give lots of room for an eventual steam away if I go in that direction in the future. I might see if Jim Schumacher gets into making something similar to that.

[Sugarmaker]

Jason,
Congrats on the new hood and preheater! You will like both of them! Hot water for clean up and less steam in the sugar house too.
What ever you do make it fairly easy to lift the stack and hood yourself.
There may be times when you need to get in there with not much help around.
I have 10 in steam stack ( two of them) and they are heavy. Both are about 12-14 feet tall. So I do have a boat winch to lift each stack off the hood high enough so the hoods can be removed. Works great for clean up.
Regards,
Chris

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I raise and lower mine with hand/boat winch. My steam roof jack is about 1/2" bigger than steam stack and it allows it to slide and it guides it as it raises up. It works great and I have 2 quick couplers for where the sap goes into the preheater and where it comes out that take about 30 seconds to uncouple and it takes about 15 seconds to lift it up. With adding a steamaway this fall, I am going to redesign the hood lifting system since the hood will be 20+ inches higher with the steamaway and I have 2 winches for the steamaway and turnbuckles for each corner and will design it similar where I can raise and lower it quickly and 2 winches for the hood.