12x16 Garden Shed - No Copula

[bryankloos]

Hey All,

with my second season behind me I'm starting to think ahead to next year. Last year I built a 12x16 garden shed to keep things out of the garage.
This season I upgraded to a 2x4XL from Mason, boiling in the driveway, all while looking at the shed and thinking about how I could get inside.
I don't have a copula, and have a lofted 8' ceiling.
I"m wondering if a power-vented steam hood would work in this situation.
I can have a good hood fabbed and then duct out the sidewall with a good sized inline squirrel cage blower.
Thoughts?

Thanks,

Bryan

[Ghs57]

I don't have a copula either, but do have dormer windows that I open to help vent steam. In the past, I have used a box fan in one of those windows which used to keep the steam to a minimum. But, if you want to add a steam hood, and maybe sometime add a preheater, you don't really want it to power vent. You need the steam to move naturally through the hood to properly heat the incoming sap. I would say 80+% of my steam goes through the hood. The rest goes out the windows. The sap temp out of the preheater is 160-180F. This is on a diy setup; pro systems probably work better. Before the steam hood, it was a sauna in there, even with the windows open.