In floor heat

[tonka]

Is there anyone who has their sugar house heated through out the cold months? whether it be radiant floor hear or a gas furnace?

[SWEETER CREATIONS]

Yes we heat ours with in floor heat to 70 degrees year round with in floor heat and a gas boiler .

[jmayerl]

Furnace , 24/7/365

[SWEETER CREATIONS]

Well i have never seen the boiler turn on in June , July , August , or early September if the thermostat calls for heat it is on .

[upsmapleman]

I know of one instance where there was a long cold spell and the sap didn't run for more than a week and because of heat in the sugar house the syrup in the evaporator went ropey.

[tonka]

My main reason for having heat is during the cold months to prevent water lines from freezing and to have a comfortable working area doing whatever it is that needs to be done, it's an extra expense but me being 30 I have a lot of years a head of me in the shack so I'm trying to do it right along with thinking of the future.

[VT_K9]

If you run radiant heat you may have to have the heat turned on whenever the temps get below freezing. Wether you heat to 40 or 70. You cannot have the water in your lines freeze. If you run glycol then you spend more on heat because it does not transfer the heat as well as water. I have radiant heat in my house and love it. I have radiant heat in my garage and will not use it until I have a good furnace. I will plumb it to my outdoor furnace, but if I go away for a couple days or more I want an indoor heat source to take over when the furnace is out of wood.

Maybe you can run radiant heat in a specific area of the sugar house. Such as the RO room (or designated area to be an RO room). Then any water lines you run outside the room make sure they have decent slope to drain. At the end of each day open the valves to drain the water. Radiant heat can be expensive with the control valves, but it is nice to not have the heat source (wall unit, kick space heater, or baseboard) exposed. Plus anything you leave on the floor will be dry in a couple hours.

Mike

[Sunday Rock Maple]

RO room only with electric baseboard on a thermostat.

[tonka]

Well I decided to make a temporary living quarters in the shack until I can build a house so regardless it will have radiant heat. To those who are in Minnesota, can your evaporator room have wood on the walls to become licenced producer? I'm aware that the kitchen/bottling room can not have porous walls.