Next Questions

[Brad W Wi]

I followed the majority of you and will be using arch board in the evaporator. I pulled out the small amount of brick I had in and set in 1" arch board. I will be fire bricking over that.
Now for the next questions. We mounted the hood over the evaporator this past weekend. I got a free standing one. (I'm a visual type of person that needs to see things)
1. Approx. how high over the evaporator should the hood hang?The hood is the same length as the evaporator and approx 6"-9" wider than the evaporator.
2. On the stack, I have a 16" stack with enough piping to go 4' over the peak of the roof. Is this more than enough or is it what I would want. I recieved 3 pieces of 16" stack and with 2 of them I would be over the peak by a foot or more and that depends on the distance from the evap. to the hood.

[Jim Brown]

Brad; Mine sets right on top of the flue pan and the steamaway sets on top of that . You can't see in the flue pan at all.
Jim

[Brad W Wi]

Jim, How high does the cap on your pipe sit above your peak??

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brad,

16" should be plenty with the suspended hood. I have 10" and mine is tight on the flue pan and off the syrup pan. As far as steam stack, 1 foot would be good but I have mine inside a roof jack aproximately1/2" bigger and my steam stack sits inside of it aproximately 1/2" below the top of the stack. This keeps the cold air from hitting the steam stack and creating a lot more condensation back dow the steam stack. :)

[Jim Brown]

Brad; Mine does not go as high as the peek.I have a 'shed type' roof on the back of by garage(9 feet wide 24 feet long) and the rig sets in there. We go hrough the roof about 3 feet. we have a cap on the pipe to keep the rain from running down the inside.
The steam has NO PROBLEM getting out when the rig is running hard!
Hope this helps
Jim

[Brad W Wi]

Does anyone have any idea how much water I can collect with my 2x8 unit? I don't have running water there and would want to collect quite a bit. With 2 lenghts of 4' x 16" pipe I would have a foot + above the peak, or I could add the other 4' length that I have for more condensation.

[hangman]

I see you guys talking about 'Arch Board'.
What is it, how & where is it used, what sizes does it come in and where can you buy it?

Thanks

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brad,

I boil off 50gph with my 2x8 and get about 10 gph. If you let the wind hit the top of the stack, you should get more but make sure you have a way to catch all the condensation running back down the stack so you don't boil some of it twice. :)

[HanginAround]

Yes, you should have a drip pan in your hood plumbed to the outside or into your drip channel, under your stack to catch what runs back down. If your drip tray under your preheater tubes covers the stack, that's all you need.

Hangman, I'll start a new thread to talk about archboard.

[Sugarmaker]

Brad,
I never thought much about the amount of condensate coming down the stack. I have drip channels under the preheater tubes, so I cant really depend on 'catching' the condensate from the pipe. We have 10 inch dia on a 3 x 5 flue pan. We get about 6-7 gallons of condensate, mainly from the drip channels. Seems like you should get 5 gallons??? If you could dump this into say a 50 gallon insulated container you would have plenty of HOT water for clean up.
I don't think you will regret putting in the arch board.

Chris

[Pete33Vt]

Around here we do a few different things to catch our water. One is to have it drip right into a open top barrel. Another is to have it drip into a five gallon pail. With the pail it does fill up so we drill a hole and put a spout in the side a few inches down from the top. then hook a length of tubing to it so we can let it flow either out the door or into a drian. One producer I know has a real maple tree in his sugar house. And it is always "running". He plumbed his water into a section of maple that is standing in his sugarhouse. He made it look like the tree is growing out of the floor and throught the roof. He has a metal bucket and spout on the tree. And its always running full stream. He has an over flow line hooked up, so the water leaves the sugar house and not alover the floor. Its a real eyechacther to most people that enter.

[Sugarmaker]

Brad,
Forgot to mention my stacks are about 3 foot over the peak of the roof. Seems to work OK.
Chris