raising and lowering your steam hood ??

[tcross]

i recently got and installed a steam hood for my flue pan. my intentions are to put a pully system with a winch (manual or electric) to raise and lower my hood/stack so i can clean my flue pan as needed. do any of you guys have any pictures of how you have yours set up, that you'd be willing to share? or some advice on how to accomplish this. it seems fairly simply in my mind, but once i start looking at my sugarhouse and how i'd go about it, it seems to start getting a little complicated?! my original idea was to have a larger section of stack go into my hood and telescope it up and over the remaining stack. but then i'd have to clamp the majority of the stack in place The way i have thing set up, that'd be tough. my roof jack is 1 3/4" - 2" wider than my stack so i'm thinking if i'm raising my hood it would just push the stack up and through the roof jack. but doing that with one winch, is confusing me a bit. can the hood be lowered and lifted off one winch and pully system?

[30AcreWoods]

It sure can! If you have two lift points on your steam hood, just use a block and tackle arrangement on each end, and run each lead from the top of your last pulley on each end to a winch, or in my case I just tied them together because there is so much mechanical advantage I do it by hand. In this case, you do need two pulley systems, or a stiff spreader bar if you only use one. I opted for two vertical systems that attach to brackets I screwed to my roof rafters (I made a "yoke" arrangement of the cable into a triangle off each side of my hood as there is an attachment point on each side of the hood on each end - it's basically a triangle with a ring connector at the top where I clip in the block and tackle). As for the steam stack(s), they should just slide up through your oversized roof jack(s) without any problem.

[bmbmkr]

I wish I could get a picture to load. Here's my set up I lag screwed some hardwood 2x4's to the bottom of my rafters. In these I put 4 eye bolts directly over top of the 4 corners of my steam hood. The eyebolts over the front of the hood has a pulley attached and I attached a turn buckle and pulley to each corner of the steam hood, I ran 1/4" cable through the front pulleys down through the front pulleys on top of the hood, back through the rear pulleys on the hood, and then up to the eye bolt under the rafters. One of the cables runs all the way to the wall to a boat winch, and the shorter cable is clamped to the winch cable.

The turnbuckles aren't really required, but handy to fine tune the leveling from left to right and front to back. I built my hood and wanted to make sure I could get it "leveled" so the condensate would drain out of the rear corner. My stack is attached to the top of the hood and telescopes up and down through the roof jack.

[tcross]

thanks for the insight guys! sounds like very do-able. i like the turnbuckle idea to keep the pan level... especially so it will raise and lower up through the roof easily! i'll have to get some staging set up and get to it!

[30AcreWoods]

Go for it! It was a fun project for me because it looks really cool when everything lifts up - especially with someone standing outside as the top hats raise.

[maple flats]

I'm not much of a picture guy, but on my 3x8 evaporator I had a hook on each corner and using a plumb bob, I mounted pulleys to the ceiling joists or on 2x4's attached to the trusses to line up directly over the lift hook. I then used a boat winch to hoist the hood. My steam stacks were 15" (2 total and they went up with a 13" stack hung from in the cupola. The 15" rose up while the 13" remained where it was, I lost very little steam. Thus they telescoped 13" inside the 15". It worked well.

[30AcreWoods]

Dave makes a really important point that I omitted: make sure your lifting points on your joists/rafters, etc. are directly over the hooks on your hoods. Otherwise, you are both putting pressure on the hood (or tension), and it will want to "drift" as it rises. My "yoke" configuration on each end makes it so I can utilize a single lift point on the rafters at each end of the hoods (they bolt together like yours). A spreader bar would serve the same function.

[tcross]

i plan on setting a cedar beam over each end of the hood. there are 2 hooks on each end of the hood to attached a cable too then straight up to a pully. Thanks for your guys advice, i believe i have a pretty good idea on how to rig it up.!