Lot of Rocks Maple coming to life

[VTnewguy]

So after months of adsorbing the great info from the website we are closing in on our sugar shack. It's been a team project so far with lots of friends and family chipping in. It's a 16x20 shack with a 2x6 Leader evaporator ready to go once everything is buttoned up. The next step is to get the cupola framed up next weekend. I can't wait! Any suggestions that you might have now is the time. 14412144131441414415

[madmapler]

Looks great! Are you going to run steam pipe through the roof?

[SeanD]

Other than the Red Wings shirt, things look great. That's a good size sugar house for your 2x6. I have a 12'x20' and I can keep all my wood inside and have room for visitors. The extra 4' of width you have is even better. Enjoy being inside this winter.

Sean

[MISugarDaddy]

Looks like you are off to a good start. You will definitely enjoy being inside this next season. Good luck with the rest of it.
Gary

[lakeview maple]

Nice job , looks great

[VTnewguy]

After everybody's suggestion that we build it big enough for future expansion, I think it will be a good size.

[VTnewguy]

We don't have a hood for a steam pipe this year. I'm hopeful that we will have one in the next year or two. We went with a 8/12 pitch so we would have plenty of head room for it.

[maple flats]

You can easily make a hood. My first 3 rigs had homemade hoods, my 4th has a factory hood, but that is because I bought a demo hood with a small dent at a 60% discount off new. I have a hard time finding the dent.
My homemade hoods were made on an aluminum trim brake, but I've seen many bent over a straight edge, my 1st 2 hoods were made from aluminum roof flashing, for my 3rd. I bought 3x8 sheets of aluminum stock. That bent much harder. Try making one out of the flashing and use a good straight edge to form the bends. Pop rivet it together. Make a gutter around the bottom to catch the condensate and drain it to a bucket. Remember to also make a funnel under the steam stack to catch that drip too and run it the the gutter. The bucket will then have some hot water to use.

[VTnewguy]

One question I have for everyone is about the cupola. What is the average height that people go for. For a 16x20 shack we are going to have a 48"w* 96"L on the opening. Not so sure on how high to go. Any suggestions?

[MISugarDaddy]

At a minimum it should be the size of your largest anticipated evaporator. When we built our sugarhouse we built our cupola 3' by 6' in anticipation of getting a 2' by 6' evaporator (each door is 18" tall) and even with our 2' by 4' evaporator we had steam hanging in the air several times when there was little or no wind blowing to help carry the steam out. When we went to our 2' by 6' we put a hood on it to help with the preheater and to help reduce steam in the sugarhouse and now it stays pretty much steam free. If you follow the link in my signature you can see some pictures of it.
Gary

[SeanD]

One question I have for everyone is about the cupola. What is the average height that people go for. For a 16x20 shack we are going to have a 48"w* 96"L on the opening. Not so sure on how high to go. Any suggestions?

I can't remember the height of mine, but I based it on the height of the doors and keeping the slope of the cupola roof the same as the sugarhouse roof. I wanted the cupola to be functional, but also proportional to the sugar house itself.

If you have a 4'x8' opening in the roof, two 2'x8'(ish) doors will be the minimum to maintain that opening size. Some people go bigger so they can close one door if needed.

So, the height of your wall of your cupola will be the bottom trim (3-4") plus the height of the door (minimum 2') plus the top trim (3-4" or enough that the door swing can clear the cupola roof overhang. So, with a two-foot door, your cupola wall will be somewhere around 2'6" to 2'8" above the roof.

It helped me to draw an elevation of the gable end to scale first.

Good luck,
Sean

[VTnewguy]

Thank you very much!

[Lano75]

I struggled with Cupola or Stack. I ended up purchasing a hood a year early and put a stack. I was very glad I did this no steam problems.

[RC Maple]

Like Woodville said...if you have much of an overhang on your cupola roof, make sure you doors can swing past the roof edge if swinging down. I had to forego the facia board on the eaves so that my door would be able to open like I wanted it to. I probably shrunk the height of the door too since I figured that out in time. I was trying to maintain the same roof line on the cupola as the sugar house - an 8/12 pitch.

[VTnewguy]

Thank you for your help. I'll keep that in mind.

[VTnewguy]

Finally after some bad weather on the weekend we were able to get back to framing out the cupola. It's coming along nicely. We made the cupola walls 36" high, hopefully it's not too tall.14441 14440

[maple flats]

That cupola is plenty good. If you don't have a hood it will be OK with a 2x6. If you ever go bigger, you will then need a hood.
I made my cupola 30" x 60" when I had a 2x6 and the 2 doors are only 20" tall x 46" wide, but I never used it without a hood. Now, with my 3x8 the cupola is still the same size, and I have 2 steam stacks that terminate in the cupola, each is 15" diameter. It works fine.

[VTnewguy]

Almost ready to start roofing. Thank you to everyone who has commented. More the m.1444314444

[VTnewguy]

Roof jack is here ready for installation. Darn, those things aren't cheap and the best priced one I found was thru CDL via FW Webb. I keep getting told that it's not the taj Mahal palace but it is in my mind.

[Maple Man 85]

Without pride of ownership in the sugar house and land would there be anyone talking about maple in August? Its your taj Mahal palace and that's all that matters nice pics VTnewguy!!!

[VTnewguy]

Thank you! I think it's important to take our time and do things right for the design and functionality. We got the spot for the roof jack framed out and the cupola about 95% done. Time for some roofing.14473

[VTnewguy]

Roofing is all done. Finally on to the board and batten. I can't wait to move the evaporator in. 1449814499

[MISugarDaddy]

You are progressing along very well. I can understand how you are feeling now that the roofing is on and the walls are ready to get done. Hopefully you get good weather on the days you have time to work on it. Looking good.
Gary

[VTnewguy]

Thanks Gary, the weather this year has been excellent. Unfortunately, that means drought conditions for a good chunk of the Northeast. Very excited to start the board and batten. Picked up 750 LF of 1x 10" white pine for the siding today.

[VTnewguy]

Making big strides on getting the sugar house done. Saturday might be moving day for the evaporator!!1451914520

[BAP]

Looking good. Must feel great to be almost done.

[VTnewguy]

I think the battens really make everything pop out. I can't wait to get the doors done.14546

[VTnewguy]

It feels awesome to be almost done with building the sugar shack. (For this year anyways) We can't wait for next spring.14617 14617

[MISugarDaddy]

Looks good!!! I bet you are happy to be getting the outside work done with the winter coming soon. Enjoy next season boiling inside, it's great.
Gary

[VTnewguy]

Thanks, I can't wait!

[VTnewguy]

So I need some advice about a head tank/ platform. We have a raised flue 2*6 that should boil 30 gallons of sap per hour. My question is how high up should I plan on a platform and will it affect the float? The second question would be the size of a head tank? I'm leaning towards a 160 SS tank which should give us ample run time before filling. Any thoughts?

[MISugarDaddy]

We have the same size evaporator with a preheater and we mounted our 100 gallon feed tank 8' above the floor. Our unit boils off 50 gallons per hour, so we wait until we have 50 to 65 gallons of concentrated sap from the RO in the feed tank before we fire up the evaporator. Once it is at full boil, it can keep up with the RO. When we shut the RO down, we have about one hour of boiling to go which as you can imagine goes very quickly. It sounds like you might be under estimating how much your unit will boil off each hour. It also sounds like you are going to have a really nice setup for this next season...enjoy it!!!
Gary

[VTnewguy]

I might be underestimating it a bit. We don't have a preheater or a RO. Maybe in the future, but darn all that stuff is pricey. The goal this year is just to get it running and make some improvements down the road.

[n8hutch]

I have the 160 Gallon CDL tank for a head tank it was a no brainer. 60 more gallons of storage for 75 dollars more. My original head tank location was only about 6" above my float box and it worked fine.

If you were concerned about pressure you can put a valve in your feed line to take some of the pressure off your float valves.

I would put a valve in the line personally just for maintenance or to shut off if you are worried about your float sticking over night .

[VTnewguy]

That's good to know. We will want a valve in there for sure. Thanks for the help.