Flex pipe to copula?

[Snowmad]

I'm planning on building my sugar shack next fall. I bought a 3 year old Leader Patriot evaporator and I want to have a permanent home for it and we've talked about building a 2 car garage for years so we're combining the two with a 24'wide x 36' long pole barn with a petition wall in it that will give me a sugarhouse area of 12' wide x 24 deep. The balance will be garage area but I plan on parking my truck outside during sugar season and bringing my loads of wood in to the one garage bay. The unit I bought came with a big steam hood like you'd see in a commercial kitchen of a restaurant that fits over the entire evaporator. I plan on mounting this about 6' 6" from the floor (close as I can without banging my head into it). I also got a restaurant type exhaust fan that would mount to the roof to draw out the steam. The previous owner said it worked great and I would think it would do a great job of evacuating all the steam. My problem lies herein: I want to have a traditional looking cupola on the roof for the steam to escape. I was thinking of mounting the fan inside it to help protect the fan from the elements even though it's built for external use. The problem is, unless I locate the evaporator smack dab in the center of the sugarhouse, the evaporator isn't going to line up with the center of the roof since I won't be running the evaporator parallel with the roof line. So I'm wondering if I could use some type of flex pipe (my hole in the steam hood and for the fan is 1'x1') to bring the steam up to the fan/copula or if I need a straight shot up? Should I just bag the whole copula idea and just use the fan? Is anyone else using a fan to help pull the steam out of their hood? Any advise is appreciated regarding my dimensions, copula, fan, etc. I won't start building until fall so I have time to think this out but I'm excited about the whole thing and would like to know what I'll be doing. Many thanks in advance!!! :D

[maple flats]

My hoods have 2 stacks, 1 goes straight up, the other off sets . Both vent steam well into the cupola. I see no reason why your idea wouldn't work. The only issue I see is that you won't be able to mount a pre heater in it.

[MISugarDaddy]

Snowmad
I have a similar situation with our evaporator. It sits about one foot off-center under the cupola. Since I wanted the steam pipe to vent into the cupola, I got 2 ten inch aluminum elbows that I could adjust to any angle to get the pipe up into the cupola. What I found was that the slip joints on the elbows tend to leak water that condenses on the inside of the pipe. As a result, I am trying to come up with a new plan to be able to get rid of the elbows for next season. Not sure if stainless steel elbows would have been more water tight, but I know I have to make a change before next season.
Just something for you to think about as you plan your sugarhouse.
Gary

[Michael Greer]

A small bend won't hurt, but that flexible, insulated duct material has terrible air-flow problems. Any more than a very short length will impede flow. The other thing to remember is that air flow is like a train. It's way more effecient to PULL the load that it is to PUSH. A fan up top will move more steam than one down low.