Wall Finish - Evaporator Room

[TradeRiver]

I am building a separate bottling area but for the room with the evaporator can I have wood finished walls? I have access to some inexpensive pre-finished Tounge and groove pine boards. I think it would look awesome but will I have issues with an inspector someday?

[Wanabe1972]

I asked the same question and never did get an answer on the forum or locally. I asked one local that makes 1000 or so gallons and he shrugged his shoulders. I ended up covering mine with luan plywood and paint the ceiling with 2 coats of mildew and mold resistant washable paint and ran 2 feet wide run of painted flashing all the way around my cupola. it looks like I may end up with a hood this year and if not definitely next year so it shouldn't Become an issue.

[madmapler]

I'm not the authority on this however, our other business (the one that earns us a living) has a food service area and is located in a small city in the over-regulated state of Mass. The food prep. area has to be of non-porous materials as well as the sink area. This has to do mainly with surfaces and not walls however if water was to be sprayed or water/syrup could come in contact with the wall, it would probably be required that the wall surface would also have to be non porous. This would apply to the immediate area, not the entire facility. For instance, where our sink is located, we simply installed that white plastic paneling you see in many public bathrooms, up to 4'. We have cupboards below the food prep area that have wooden doors with a polyurethane finish that have never been questioned, however, they did make us put a nonporous material(same stuff we put on the walls) on the shelves inside the cabinet. We have an exceptionally zealous health inspector we have to deal with and I'm pretty sure she would write us up if she could. She made us replace our floor over a few cracked floor tiles among other ridiculous "violations". Our counter is Formica with a wood nosing, and it's never been brought up in 16 years and several different inspectors. IMO you could do the wood wall covering and if it came up that parts of it needed to be non-porous then the plastic paneling goes up easily. As with building inspectors and such, it's not what the law dictates as much as how the individual inspector interprets it. Generally, inspectors are more lenient with existing construction over new construction. If you try to keep a sanitary facility,(keep the dog crap to a minimum as well as critters and such) I don't think health inspections are going to break anyone.

[jmayerl]

Simply put, NO. No bare wood is acceptable anywhere. I had 1 exposed rafter and the state would not sign my license until it was painted( painted wood is considered washable)

[markcasper]

I am building a separate bottling area but for the room with the evaporator can I have wood finished walls? I have access to some inexpensive pre-finished Tounge and groove pine boards. I think it would look awesome but will I have issues with an inspector someday? I got a notation on my report that the building had exposed wood and rafters. It was recommended that I could paint it with a clear sealant and that would be ok. I did not get a formal "check", so I don't know what to do. He was really fussy with the bottling room, but that is white tinned from top to bottom except for the wood trim around the door and window. There again,
I did not get a formal write up, but was told I had to either get rid of the wood trim or seal it. Keep in mind I have been in the same building getting inspected for 26 years and there was never a mention of these items until last spring. So the answer to your question seems you can have wood sides but it has to be painted with a sealant. And smooth planed boards will obviously be better than rough sawed. But with that being said, my gut tells me even that will not be allowed in the near future. If the Wisconsin inspectors had to inspect Vermont sugarhouses, many of them would be shut down for this very reason. The MapleNews is full of pictures of wooden evaporator rooms and bottling rooms with unfinished wood. They are going to nail the bottling and packaging areas the hardest. After everyone fixes that, then they'll move onto the other areas that were once ok. We'll never get ahead of it though it seems because they keep upping the bar til you will either quit or give up IMO. There was an article in the one paper about a guy being wrote up for having a wooden handle on his scoop that many equipment companies still advertise and sell out of their catalogs.

[MISugarDaddy]

We experienced the same situation in MI as Mark did in WI, we had exposed posts for our feed tank supports at the time of our first licensing inspection and the inspector said we needed to seal them with a clear sealant also.
Gary

[Michael Greer]

Many of the old guys are out there in a shanty making great maple syrup. The regulators and "food safety" folks need to stand back, move themselves along, and don't get in the way of people with a productive urge. I seriously doubt that anyone was EVER poisoned by maple syrup.

[madmapler]

I should have specified that the wood should have a finish on it. Any wood in our facility is either painted or polyurethaned. I did mention that.

[TradeRiver]

I have received some clarification for Wisconsin. The state of Wisconsin just amended some of the statues pertaining to Maple Syrup. Among other things the construction of the evaporator Room has been clarified. The standard now is that walls and ceilings need to be tightly sealed and can be of wood. The new intent is to only keep out pest and debris. I confirmed this via email with the state. Great news if you are looking for a more traditional look for your sugar shack than white metal walls.

Bottling rooms are a whole different set of rules and the above assumes that the bottling room and evaporator Room are separate spaces.

[1arch]

I have received some clarification for Wisconsin. The state of Wisconsin just amended some of the statues pertaining to Maple Syrup. Among other things the construction of the evaporator Room has been clarified. The standard now is that walls and ceilings need to be tightly sealed and can be of wood. The new intent is to only keep out pest and debris. I confirmed this via email with the state. Great news if you are looking for a more traditional look for your sugar shack than white metal walls.

Bottling rooms are a whole different set of rules and the above assumes that the bottling room and evaporator Room are separate spaces.

At the Wausau Winter institute the presenting inspectors interpreted the revised rules. IF your bottling room is under the same roof even if separated by walls, windows, doors etc... as the evaporator room the rules that apply to the bottling area also apply to the evaporator room. This held true for any other "rooms" under the same roof such as RO or storage... If this standard is upheld there could be a lot of producers not in compliance, to include large long standing producers I am familiar with. Their interpretation was that the bottling room should be a different building. At the time of the seminar they did continue to reiterate they will be discussing further with Dept heads for clarifications.

[Michael Greer]

I'll say it again...The regulatory people need to avert their eyes and go away. We small producers are capable of disappearing completely and doing what we do without interruption, observation, or approval of any kind.

[TradeRiver]

The new guidelines were just posted by the state last week as an "emergency rule". I believe the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Assoc was influential in getting the changes in place.

[Joe Hillmann]

I'll say it again...The regulatory people need to avert their eyes and go away. We small producers are capable of disappearing completely and doing what we do without interruption, observation, or approval of any kind.

I agree. If they make the regulations to hard/expensive to follow more people will stop bothering just start selling there product under the table and stop with the inspections all together. From that then they can get away with anything they are willing to get away with. I know of several local producers who either claim they aren't selling their product (one of them make over 400 gallons a year) and others who claim they sell a small enough amount to fall under the cottage laws and aren't required to follow the regulations. Some of the operations are spotless and some of them are using the grease covered work bench in the garage to do there bottling on and rusted galvanized stock tanks to hold their finished syrup before bottling. I think the overall safety would go up if the regulations are cheap and easy to comply with and allowed for smaller operators to comply with them with most of there existing equipment.

On a side note it really bothers me that wood(which has been used safely for thousands of years for food preparation) is considered not safe to use anywhere near a food environment but if you cover that wood with modern chemicals,paints or plastics that may slowly leach into the food it is safe(there are many examples of plastics that were once thought food safe that are beginning to be reveled to not be Teflon and BPA are the two best known)