New sugar shack has started

[lords sugaring]

Building a 12x16 sugar shack next summer. I've got my form built for my slab and the cement truck is coming in this Friday. Slab will be about 8" thick and have 8" dense grade crushed stone compacted under it. Before the truck gets here I have a few questions. Is running water/sinks required for syrup production in NH ? I have the option right now to run a sink drain pipe under the slab with out being a huge pain. I would hate doing all this work to find out I need one. Also what are you guys doing for power ? I've already planned a 1" pvc for electric wires running from the house, is this enough ? Eventually want to run a Vacuum System and RO with lights, radio and small hot water heater possibly.

[maple flats]

I'm not familiar with NH regs but for the power I strongly suggest 1.5" PVC conduit for the power. That gives you a lot more options for electric. For the regulations pertaining to water and other things, contact your state maple association.

[S.S.S]

I would put insulation and plastic under that slab for frost protection and moisture in summer

[n8hutch]

Building a 12x16 sugar shack next summer. I've got my form built for my slab and the cement truck is coming in this Friday. Slab will be about 8" thick and have 8" dense grade crushed stone compacted under it. Before the truck gets here I have a few questions. Is running water/sinks required for syrup production in NH ? I have the option right now to run a sink drain pipe under the slab with out being a huge pain. I would hate doing all this work to find out I need one. Also what are you guys doing for power ? I've already planned a 1" pvc for electric wires running from the house, is this enough ? Eventually want to run a Vacuum System and RO with lights, radio and small hot water heater possibly.

I would advise you to use the Rules that the Vermont maple sugar maker's association has laid out as far as sugarhouse layout and syrup production, NH rules are pretty lenient and I do not believe that will continue forever. You should be able to find the checklist somewhere on this site (I'm not very savvy when it comes to links) that checklist should be really helpful in hitting on the items you really need.

I would run a minimum of 2" PVC conduit I ran 1.5 because I had a bunch of it , pulling the wire was pretty difficult for a 100 amps service, I was going 90 feet and it was tricky and I only had 2 90° sweeps . When ever I ask my electrician friend he always wants bigger like 3" but I think that overkill.

[amaranth farm]

Radio Silence.

[sap retreiver]

I couldn't tell you what was better having a roof over my head or running water and a good sink. My life is so much easier now that everything gets canned and cleaned in the sap house. Floor drains are a big bonus too. Now is the time. At least plan for it. Expansion will happen

[lords sugaring]

I have the plastic down already S.S.S . What is the DWV you're talking about ? I know my frost line is 4' for running water underground. I'm at 96' from house to shack for running everything. I wasn't planning running the water underground if I didn't have to but rather a garden hose from the spigot into the shack to where I can drain it daily. I realize it would be a pain but much cheaper than digging 4' with the lines running from the house to the shack

[Super Sapper]

Run all the drains that you think you might need now including floor drains and stub them outside the slab even if you do not intend on using them now. 8 inches is pretty thick, go with 6 inches or even 4 inches is enough and use the money saved on concrete to do the plumbing up to code and you will be farther ahead.

[maple flats]

I don't have a water source at my sugarhouse, but I have water, hot and cold. In season it is permeate, after the season I haul water from my house to the sugarhouse and pump it into my permeate tank. From there I have a line that feeds a diaphragm pump in the sugarhouse to give cold water and a tee in the line supplies the tankless hot water heater. The pump is a 120V 3.3 gpm diaphragm pump. Coming out of the water heater I have a hose connection and a potable rated hose then reaches the entire sugarhouse. It works great to clean up. My problem is that I need to drain the lines and pump as the risk of freezing approaches, but until the insulated tank might freeze I keep the permeate tank with water. Then I drain that as the temps stay below freezing for more than 3-4 days at a time. In winter I have no running water, then I need to put a clean IBC (caged tote) in the truck and haul it when I'm working there.
If I had the option to just dig a trench 100 or so feet to have water I'd certainly do it, my sugarhouse is about 3 miles from my home and likely the city wouldn't like me digging things up to run it.
Even if you can't run a trench now, do as suggested above and run what you need in and under the floor now, then when you can do the trench you can connect it easily.
I ran 2" PVC that brought power in, but my wire was 250 KCMIL (the next size larger than 4/0) to keep voltage loss at a minimum, it was running 180' from a pole and it also carries my grid tied solar back out to the grid. When I strung that I fed it 10' at a time as I slid the lengths of conduit onto the cables and I had to lube the wires too and they had to be taped to prevent any criss crossing or the conduit would not go on.

[lords sugaring]

Run all the drains that you think you might need now including floor drains and stub them outside the slab even if you do not intend on using them now. 8 inches is pretty thick, go with 6 inches or even 4 inches is enough and use the money saved on concrete to do the plumbing up to code and you will be farther ahead. I calculated out all materials I needed to only pour a 6" slab. The 3/4 dense grade I had dropped at the house wasn't enough when the material calculator said it would be. So instead of having another load dropped and renting a compactor again it's actually cheaper to add the extra cement and will lessen the likely hood of cracking. Also what are you guys running for a service power to the shack 100A ? What are your load calculations for the building ? This is where things get tricky as I've almost maxed out my main 150a panel in my house. So options would be running new line from the pole with separate meters or upgrading to 400a service with 2 200a panels run in parallel in my basement. Then from one panel run out to the building with a 100a sub.

[maple flats]

Why would you have a 200A panel but only run a 100A service to the sugarhouse? I have 200A, but the big question is how much RO could you possibly need in 10 years? If you only need a 125 or 250 RO, the power is much less than if you need a 1200 GPH RO or even larger. While an RO saves loads of time and fuel it takes lots of electric to run it. (the good news is that it saves far more than it uses) That should be where you address your crystal ball. We don't know what that answer might be. If the 12x16 sugarhouse won't get any additions, nor need any, 100A will be plenty, but if you get bitten bad by the maple bug and you add room for a larger evaporator, a large RO, a big water jacketed bottler, a large electric HW heater, a high pressure blower and a few more things, you might well need 200A or even more.
Try to lay out your production "maybe" goals 5 and 10 years out. Do the power now for the 10 year, if you get even larger, address that issue at that time.
When I started, I had a 5000 watt generator, then I got a 6000 watt. Then I put in 6240 watts of solar, of which 1480 watts are on battery backup/grid tied, the rest is plain grid tied. When I did that I had to bring in grid power, my house is 3 miles away. I ran a 200A service, but since I have the solar which also feeds the panel, I had to use a 225A panel box with a 200A main (code says I could only over power the box by 10%, that meant I had too much solar to feed into the panel box. With my 225A box and the 10% over rule I could run 247.5 A into the box. That covered my needs). I first thought, when building the sugarhouse that a 30A generator would do it, I now have 45A just if I run my WJ bottler and the RO at the same time, not to mention lights, my high pressure blower, my electric vacuum pump, my 2 freezers for syrup storage and my compressor which powers the filter press air powered diaphragm pump. Not trying to scare you, just pointing out that plans change. My plans went from needing a 30A genny to needing over 100A in about 8 years time, many grow faster than that.

[Maple Man 85]

We put in a 400A service and split it into 2 200A boxes. If we are running the RO, evaporator, lights, compressor and canner we still have the ability to add a 2nd RO without tripping breakers. Also if you are that dependent on electric I would recommend having a plug in on your service so if the power goes out a quick trip to united rentals and your back up and running without the potential of overflowing tanks or spoiled sap.

[lords sugaring]

Good point maple flats. I plan on tapping my entire property which is about 8 acres. I have about 2 acres a logging company opened up before I bought the property. Within the the opened acreage I have 100 maples I'm going to be tapping this spring. I haven't walked the back 6 acres of my property counting maples that are ready to be tapped yet. I also have access to 250 taps on another property for a few years until they move out. My neighbor has 50 acres behind me but I don't think I'll ask him to tap all of that. I guess my maple goals are to tap about 1000-1200 total in maybe 15 years or so. Who knows that could change too but I think that will give me my maple fix. I was bit hard that first year but it's taken me 4 seasons to get this new rig and start my shack. I was sick of the 12 hour boils on my old setup and sick of being out in the elements. Anyways I did take some of the advise and dug a 4' hole today after work where I will put 2" pvc for water lines running up under my slab out about 8" where I'll be caping it for my trench later. I also have an electrician stopping by this week to come up with a game plan for power to it. Will use same hole for 2" pvc for electric lines at the 18" mark. I have called off the truck for Friday unless some miracle happens for digging the floor drain and main drain line out from under it too.

[maple flats]

While I did 1320 on a 250 it was real hard, as you approach 8-900 you should have a 500-600 GPH RO. My 250 did it because my wife ran the RO and boiled while I was driving school bus or hauling sap (most of my sap is hauled 7 miles). Then after my afternoon school bus run I again got 1 more load of sap and when I got to the sugarhouse I took over and my wife went home. On good sap flow days we boiled 7-8 hours with the RO running most of that time.
The real question is how much time will you have to boil? At that 1320 tap count, I had the 3x8 I now have and it boils about 75-80 gph, but my wife ran it slower, at about 55-60. On my RO plumbing I had it set so I can change from running sap to recirculating concentrate to remove even more water by just opening one valve as we closed another, then we monitored the RO pressure to adjust to handle which ever we had switched to, Both ran at 270-275 PSI but the pressure had to be adjusted a few times to keep it there when the source was changed. My RO runs about 250 gph on sap, a little less when making a second pass. On it my 1st pass removes about 3/4 of the water, on second pass it removes about half the remaining water or just under.
If you have a well designed and tight system with 1200 taps you will have days, with vacuum that you will get well over 2000 gal of sap. Sap does not keep long, especially if it gets warm. Think of it like milk.

[lords sugaring]

Maple flats, I usually have about 4 hours after work for boiling but could do 7 at most. Think my wife wouldn't be to happy if I did more than 4, time to get her into it. I dug some more holes today for piping. My builder friend keeps contradicting my pipe size for pex coming in and drains to the dry well. He says i don't need anything more than 1.5" for everything plumbing related. Is 2" better for what I'm doing ? Piping should be done this weekend and the truck is now coming next Friday.

[amaranth farm]

Radio Silence.

[BAP]

4” green drain pipe is relatively cheap and makes great conduit for running water lines into a building because there is plenty of room. If you aren’t going to heat sugar house consider installing a frost free hydrant for the water.

[n8hutch]

I used 3" and 4" schedule 40 for my floor drains and sink drains. I didn't want to have to worry about them backing up, currently it is just run to daylight but sometime next summer I will put in some kind of drywell or stone mattress/leachbed

The green stuff SDR 35 would work great I just didn't have any handy, I would recommend putting schedule 40 pieces up through the slab then you will know that there will be no building code issues.

[lords sugaring]

Ok I will pick up some bigger pipe for drains. How low below the slab/ground are your drain pipes ? Water and electric conduit are done, starting floor and main drains tomorrow

[lords sugaring]

Long busy weekend prepping for the concrete truck. Got my floor drain and main drains plumbed under where the slab going to be. I put a .6" pitch to the drain out about a foot outside the form. Later to be plumbed into a dry well 15' away. Put the plastic and grid back in. Think I'm good to go now. Floor drain is 5' from the right edge of the slab and 7' from the rear. It will sit real close to my draw off on my pan. Used 3" schedule 40 DWV for the drains as well. Thanks for your help thus far, I'll update as I go and probably have more questions.

[VTnewguy]

Looks good.

[sap retreiver]

Just right you won't regret it