Preheater plumbing

[Windy Acres]

Ok guys , I am wondering what to use from my sap feed (pvc) to the infeed of the preheater, and from the out feed to the float box?

[maple maniac65]

Can't thaw pvc with a flame

[Windy Acres]

All of my lines get drained nightly, just wondering what everyone else uses in the hood to hook to the preheater

[mellondome]

My preheater feed and outlet are outside the hood. I use copper for all piping. For the connection to the preheater I have clear beaded hose that fits over the copper. Leaving a 1 in gap between the pipes allows for visual of sap flow.

[Bucket Head]

Mine is very close to Mellondome's. All copper except for a few inches between the heater outlet and floatbox. Clear braided hose there also for viewing. And I have clear braided hose coming from the feed tank to the heater inlet. My feed tank is pretty close to the evaporator. I did it that way on my last rig and it worked well so I duplicated it on the current rig.

[BreezyHill]

Stainless from the float box to a backup tank valve in the sugarhouse. Clear sight tube for tank level before a copper line goes thru the concrete wall to a bulk tank on the other side that is in a subfloor room in the metal building. Sugar house is the basement of one end of the metal building. Stainless is tri clover clamped and easy to clean and thaw if needed.

Section of old tape measure next to clear level indicator pipe with zip ties. Red is shut down level, yellow is 30 minutes to red, green is current level. Blue is full tank level. Need to install a couple offloat switches for red and full to alarm and led lights for those long late nights.

Had pvc from copper in the old preheater to the valve but the pvc got soft under the heat of the sap and pulled apart one night. Rude way to get woke up with a cold bath of sap. Stainless is within a few degrees of the heat the copper transferred to the sap. Copper was higher but the stainless was only a few bucks to throw together. Copper I would have had to go and buy. Stainless looks nicer than the copper did. IMO...shinny vs dull.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Same as Mellondome.

[Windy Acres]

Thanks for all the replies, the infinite is appreciated!