Pre-heater build

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

Over this summer after the season I am going to work on building a pre heater out of 2" stainless steel milk pipeline. I can get it for a dollar a foot from a neighboring shut down dairy farm. Problem is that i would have to solder/Weld it togather. I would like to look at this as an advantage. How should i arrange the pipes in the preheater. i have acess to 200 feet and my evaporator is a 3 by 10.

[TimJ]

Do you have Ts and elbows for the 2" tubing?

[Bucket Head]

How thick is that tubing? Is it the same thickness as iron/galvanized pipe in 2"? Copper has a lot better heat transfer rate and will be easier to work with, not to mention all the elbows and fittings are right down the road at the hardware store. Besides, I don't know how much tubing your your heater will have, but with 2" pipe do you know how many gallons of sap volume your going to have? Thats going to be quite a bit of sap suspended in the hood, along with the substantial weight of the stainless. By all means get the stainless pipe, it will be good to have. But I'm not sure a preheater is the best use for it.

Steve

[wiam]

I would go with 3/4 copper. Seems like the sap would only get heat near the outside of 2", not all the way to the middle. I am not saying it will not work but I would not want to be the test pilot. Stainless fittings are expensive.

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

My dad is an HVAC guy and gets old copper pipes out of peoples house. we refer to the pile of copper now as the "auto draw off". But we could also make it into a pre heater rather than scrap it. I have almost every size of copper imaginable and tons of fittings. How should i configure the pipes in the preheater if i decide to build one?

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

come in low to a manifold with how ever many T's and width you can, solder lengths up just under the size of your flue pan tilt it so the sap has to go up hill same amount of T's on the upper manifold then to your float. At the top Manifold solder a 1/4 or 3/8 fitting(so lets say 1"x1"x1/4) make that go straight up through your hood for release of any vapor that would create a vapor lock.

Ball valve the tube before going into hood and ball valve tube coming out make a bypass tube just in case the pre heater messes up you can shut it down keep sap flowing