Blower

[Lance]

Howdy, All - I wanta put a blower on our 7 yr. old wood fired D&G 2x6 with preheater. I put in a bunch more taps this year and want to get the evap as tweaked as can be so I'm not boiling for 2-3 days straight. I talked to a dealer who said he could get me a blower kit for $685 but given the money I've already spent this year, I'm not real keen to spend another big chunk. I've got no experience with sheet metal but am a pretty quick learner. Can somebody give me a Blowers for Dummies lesson so I can get this old D&g crankin'? Thanks in advance!

[Rob Harvey]

I believe if you look back in the homemade maple equipment section you will find it. Rob

[Sugarmaker]

Lance,
I got my 550 CFM blower from Grainger with a 2 speed switch for around $150.00 and then fabed the tube into the fire box. Pictures on the web site. Hope this helps. You may not need 550 cfm maybe 300? Just a guess.

Chris

[brookledge]

Lance
You probably can get one free or very cheap by going to someone that sells new furnaces and see if they will give you one out of an old one they have removed. May have to search around to find the apropiate size. They could also fab up tin to adapt to your arch
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Lance,

You can make a crude duct out of roof flashing and install it in the fire door if you are installing it on the front. Flashing is aluminum, cheap and easy to work with if you don't have much time or don't want to make something permanent this year. :D

[Jim Brown]

Lance; I put a blower on my 2x6 buy using an exhaust fan for a bath room and using dryer duct . I took off the ash door and covered it with a piece of tin(alum would work) and cut a hole in it and installed dryer duct from the fan. I can get 6-700 degrees in the stack base.And after last weeks boiling the grates were red hot out to within 6 inches of the door when we were finished and I pulled the fire out. I place the fan back under the arch and run flex duct to the front and then alum ells into the box

[sweetwoodmaple]

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/itemDetailsRender.shtml?xi=xi&ItemId=1611630891&ccitem=

4C447 is the dayton blower I put on my 2 x 6. Best bang for the buck ($70) and ran my evaporator very well at almost full speed. I arrived at about 3 cfm per square inch of stack area is a good rule of thumb. (Brandon- I believe this is the one that is on your wood saver too).

I went through several iterations with my blower. The thing you have to be careful with is the amount of pressure (expressed in inches of water) that the fan can generate. The ones with low HP vs. flow rate usually cannot generate much pressure. You need a few tenths of water pressure to adequately push air through the ash pit.

Good luck.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brian,

It looks the same and a ton, ton, cheaper. I hate buying anything off of the evaporator companies and they sock it to you. I am printing out the specs for it and am going to take it tommorrow. I will likely pick up one of these in a few months just to have a spare. Better safe than sorry. :)

Or, is this one of those things that never wear out. :?:

[brookledge]

Brandon,
The blower should last along time and then when you do need to make a repair it would either be a belt,bearings or the motor in each case could be replace at a fraction of the cost except for the motor. The motor is the main component and sometimes it is cheaper to buy a new unit.
But I would say you can have many years without any problems. If there is anything you would want on the shelf for a spare,I would say to keep a reostat switch handy
Keith

[mountainvan]

when I had a 2x6 I used the square fans, 4x4 muffin fans, hooked together with a regular dimmer switch to control speed. A couple of these going at full do blow a lot of air.

[OneLegJohn]

What is the actual difference in evaporation rate with a blower? 25 GPH to 35 GPH?

[brookledge]

It depends on the size of the evaporator and if your arch is well insulated. Its probably more like 15-20% increase.Maybe some one else could add to this
Keith

[brookledge]

I forgot to mention that not only do you get an increase in GPH you should reduce the amount of wood you burn.
Keith

[Father & Son]

Could a blower be ducted in through the draft door or should it go into the back of the firebox? I have yet to hook mine up. Last night just for something to try I aimed it into the draft door. All it seemed to accomplish was pushing the fire and heat past the syrup pan back onto the flue pan. I could not get the syrup pan to boil at all. After about an hour of messing around and wasting time I shut it off and the front pan started to boil. Any suggestions?
Jim

[brookledge]

Jim,
Some have set it up to go in through the draft door but I think that you would get better results if it was under the arch and push the flame towards the arch doors making the heat take the longest path to get out. That is the way mine is but it is an inferno arch that was made that way.
If you go in through the back of the fire box you need to plug up the draft door. If you have double doors in the arch it may blow out through the joint so you will have to ajust the amount of forced air going through
Keith

[mountainvan]

I used the square fans through the front and it worked well. I did try and make the rig airtight, ceramic on the arch rail and between the pans and on the front doors and under the flue pan to reflect the heat back up into the pan. Most important I installed a damper in the first section of 8" pipe, I never closed it all the way, just enough to really get it boiling. One year I made 150 gallons on it, a lot of time in the saphouse. Since I can't get a damper big enough for my current rig, I use the stack cover as one. I have it set up so it only opens three inches. I think this helps keep the heat where it belongs, in the evaporator, not being blown straight out the stack.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Where does all the air go if the damper is only open 3 inches and are you using a blower?? What is the difference in your evporation rates with the damper open 3 inches and wide open? :?

[mountainvan]

Air goes up the stack only, completely airtight arch. I have three blowers hooked together controlled by one fan speed switch. I only have the blowers running half speed, if I turn them up too much I have the forth of july coming out of my stack.have no idea what the cfm is I got them free awhile back. my saphouse is at the foot of a very steep mountain with lots of leaves and brush. If I started a fire in the woods late at night it could burn hundreds-thousands of acres of forever wild new york state land, and that would really piss the state off. My evaporation rate is still avg. 80 if the stacks wide open and the fans are going full, or the stack top is open a little and the fans on half. main difference is wood consumption!!! The main reason I do what I do is to cut down on wood. I used almost twice as much wood wide open as I do now. I think some blowers are set too high and a lot off heat is lost up the stack, that's why I did'nt like boiling on that intensofire. Also once the rig warms up, I don't even turn the fans off to fire. A few sparks come out but that's it. My base stack temp. is usually around 1000 degrees. have had it up to 1600 with ash split real fine, but that's a bit hot for me. that's also when I boil 90+/hr. why more guys don't use some type of damper I don't know.

[maple flats]

mountainvan, you should be able to get a damper made in any size. Go to a tin shop and they can make it using 2 pivot mounts. If you can't find it let me know the size and I will get a price for you to see if you still want it, from a local tin shop that makes what is needed. Right now they are making ducts for a local furniture manufacturer that measure 46" x 46" x 96" and I told them I would stop and give them a little help this week.

[maple flats]

lobstafari, let me know about the cat converter but I sell stoves and they are generally to burn the smoke for a more complete burn and I have never seen smoke from my evap except when just starting. I am not sure there is anything further to burn in the exhaust.

[mountainvan]

I think that it's a catch 22 for the boiling. As I stated I do increase the boil about 10gal/hr with it wide open,but(this is my opinion) use too much wood and better odds for scorching my syrup. So I'm happy with the way I'm doing it. As for the damper maple flats, I'd like to do that but my base stack and first section are a beautiful purplish stainless steel that is riveted together and I'm not too good with metal work so I won't take it apart. By the way turning a stainless pipe purple is a sign of a real hot fire. I tried the coverter on my 2x6 about 8 years ago and did'nt notice a difference. probably cause it was the old one off of my woodstove and all the platinum was gone. that is what they coat them with?

[mountainvan]

by the way: thanks for helping me pass the time.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

This sure is interesting and I would like to hear more on this subject. I run my blower wide open and my stack wide open and all the syrup I have made this year has been light or a lightish med and most of what I made last year was the same. I think one of my keys is that I have a 2x8 drop flue with 7.5" flues and it only takes about 20 gallon to fill up the entire evaporator to 1". This means at 50gph which is what my normal boil rate is, the sap is fully recycling 2.5 times per hour. I doubt there is anyone with a raised flue that can come anywhere close to that. If am not saying anything negative about a raised flue, but I hold my sap sometimes for up to a week before boiling and I still make the majority light and med. Out of 93 gallons last year, only 15 dark. If I would ever buy another evaporator down the road, it will likely be a raised flue mainly because of price. :?