Hot water form your evaporator

[TessHayden06]

Does anyone have thoughts, pictures on how to get hot water from your evaporator? I think I have seen some people run copper pipe along the outside of the arch and get hot water. If anyone has any plans, pictures could you pass them along?

I am running a sap preheater on a homemade 2x4 that wraps around my stack. I guess I could run water through that but wasn't really looking to slow down the evap rate.

Thanks

[PapaSmiff]

I think I've seen it posted on this site that some people take hot water from the runoff from their Steam Hood.

[RileySugarbush]

The best way to get hot water is a fortunate byproduct of the best way to pre heat the sap. You use the copper tube but instead of wrapping it around the stack, place it one the flue pan so it is warmed by condensing steam. It is best to use a hood to keep the steam around the copper pipes, and an absolute must is a collection tray to catch the drips of hot condensed water, with a little hose that drains it off to a container.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Our preheater (for a 5 by 14) is homemade from 3/4" copper. There are about a dozen pipes installed on brackets over the flue pan at about a 10 degree angle inside the hood. The pipes terminate in a manifold at both ends with the upper manifold being vented with a tube that goes higher than the tank feeding the evaporator. The lower manifold exits to the float and there is a pitcock to drain it so it doesn't freeze. The whole unit has a drip pan under it that drains out to a five gallon pail located under the float pan, that pail fills with hot water (from condensate dripping off the pipes) in about 15 minutes. Sap comes out of the preheater at about 140 degrees.

Good luck!

[TunbridgeDave]

Just don't use the hot water to rinse and wash the RO!

[TessHayden06]

Sunday Rock Maple- would you happen to have a picture of that setup? I'm running a homemade 2x4 in a 10x12 shack. Yes I am relatively new to this! I don't currently have a hood, but have started to think that is a necessary piece of equipment.

[Sugarmaker]

Yes a hood and a basic parallel flow type pre-heater would yield you about 3-4 gallons of hot water per hour.
Currently we are letting about 20-30 gallons of hot water run down the drain using a 3 x 10 King with a 3 x 5 WRU (steamaway).
Regards,
Chris

[Brent]

We have a Leader Steamaway on a 2-1/2x8 rig and it runs 200 deg water continuously at a rate faster
the you pee. Fills a 5 gallon pail every 5 - 6 minutes.

[Ozy]

Maybe you should bottle it and sell it as distilled water, every little bit helps.

[Brent]

I'd love to.
I also like to run it to the house for heat.

But I can't even give away the pure RO water that now just goes out the hole in the wall and down the hill (after the wash / rinse tank is full )