Boiling with natural gas

[Williams Farm]

Just wanted to see if any producers out there are boiling with natural gas. We are possibly looking to upgrade our oil fired 5 by 14 evaporator next year and since we already have natural gas in our sugarhouse I wanted to explore the possibility of using it to fire our evaporator. Any input on this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Newfvt]

Make that 2 - we received natural gas to our property last year. Extending to the sugarhouse would be very easy. It would almost seem that all that would be needed would be some sort of regulator and a cast iron "grate" in the arch, rather like the gas distributor on a BBQ grill - but on steroids. Then there'd be the question of $/btu, which in theory should be very competitive with natural gas. Also, would natural gas used for agriculture or food production be subject to all state and federal taxes? I'd almost bet the answer would be no
Steve

[Potters3]

I know Carlin makes natural gas burners, they look like they would bolt into place of carlin oil gun.

[Jeff E]

I have a friend who is a LP supplier, and he thought I would need 3 250K BTU burners for my 3x12 to run right. I asked him how much gas that would take, and he just grinned and said 'A lot, keep cutting your firewood.'
Did a little figuring:
Dry mixed hardwood has 17 million BTUs per cord. My 3x12 goes through a cord in about 15 hrs, so 1.1 million BTUs per hour.
LP has 92,000 BTUs per gallon, so I would need about 12 gallons of LP per hour. Not sure, but if LP is about $4 per gallon, so $48 per hour for fuel.

[PerryW]

I know propane is more expensive and nat. gas, but my cousin would use $45 worth of propane for each gallon of syrup produced on his turkey fryer.

[tuckermtn]

At the Hyde Park Maple School in VT this year the manager at CDL did a work shop on different fuels and cost in a hypothetical 10,000 tap operation. Natural gas was the cheapest cost per gallon. I don't have all the numbers, but call CDL in St. Albans and ask for the manager (can't remember his name) but he is more than willing to give you the numbers.

Eric

[mapleack]

This is my third season boiling with natural gas. My situation is a bit different than most since the gas is free, but it's pretty nice to boil with. As long as the fed doesn't ban hydraulic fracturing any time soon, public utility gas should stay reasonably priced for quite sometime. I modified burners that I purchased, but I'm running them on 5psi (not for the timid) instead of 8oz like public supplies. I know that carlin is building gas burners, and I believe that lapierre is offering Riello burners, but they are several thousand a piece (nice though). A 5X14 would take a good bit of gas, you'd have to figure out your btu rate with oil, then the corresponding volume of gas and see if your existing pipes will even carry enough volume at low pressure. Lots of figuring to cover the bases before you make the switch. I'd be happy to answer any questions if I can.

[mapleman3]

Chip. You would have to go with at least 2 power burners...riello or carlin make nice conversion burners.....you running 2 oil bur ers now right? Check with fw webb up in northampton or greenfield...let them know what your using for nozzles now on high fire...and what oil psi if you know it. They can set you up with replacements. It will be cleaner and more eff. But yes the up fron cost will be there.

Jim Desjardins

Sent from my Verizon Droid Charge ! Using Tapatalk

[JRB]

We've run on natural gas since 1967 or '68. 3'x12' with 4 burners. Local gas company worked with us on the burners/nozzles. Right at 1 million BTU per hour. Sure beats cutting wood.

[Williams Farm]

Wow! This is great! This is the first time I've used this site and I appreciate all of the responses. It looks to me like using natural gas to fire our evaporator is a definite possibility. I guess the next step is to sit down and crunch some numbers and see if a switch could even save us some $ in the long run!

[upsmapleman]

One question you want to ask is how much meter charge there will be per month when you are not using it. This adds to the overall cost.