I ordered a new 2x6

[maple flats]

I placed an order with A&A Metal Shop in Va for a 2x6 raised flue. It will come as a wood fired, but I plan to remove the door, get a heavy plate and make it into an oil fired evaporator. After burning wood to heat my home and then 20 years boiling on wood, I decided I need a break. I'll still heat the house with wood, but no more boiling on wood. It will be ready in 6-8 weeks. I'll pick it up soon after and get the oil set up going, at a comfortable pace. I also have plans to add an addition to my workshop, an additional 14x32', all to be sawn on my manual sawmill using hemlock that is still on the stump. Those projects will keep me plenty busy.
For those interested A&A gets $3250 for a 2x6 raised flue as of right now, who knows when it will go up.
This order was placed after looking for a 2x6 that I considered reasonably priced for almost 3 years. I found some, with lead soldered, and some welded but on each there was something I didn't like, price, condition, distance to drive to look at it or a number of other things. Then after speaking with a few who had bought an A&A I made the leap. Oil fired will be totally new for me.
I have never had anything that burned oil (except an old Chevy), this will be totally new. I look forward to having an evaporator that as I run out of sap I can just turn off the switch, cover everything, drain my tankless water heater and walk away. Shutting down has never been that easy on any of my evaporators in 20 years of boiling sap.
I also ordered a hood, out of 4 evaporators I've had I made my own hood on 3. I also plan to order 2 tanks, a 100 gal sap tank for my head tank, with cover, and a 20 gal tank with cover for my draw off tank. I had both of those before, but larger, they went with my 3x8 when it sold. I plan to run between 200 and 300 taps, about 225 on sugars, the rest on reds, all running directly to the sugarhouse, on vacuum.
No comments please on going to oil, as I say, I've used wood for over 50 years, it's time to take it easier.

[Robert K]

Back in the game,
Dave , I totally understand the switch and look forward to your updates as you set things up. I just about sugared my syrup pan the other night on shut down as I misjudged the cool down period (wood fired) after a 6 hour boil. Glad I keep a bucket of water around for those whoops moments. Congrats on the 2x6 and many happy boils.
Robert

[ebliese]

Glad you found something that will work for you!

[plattmaple]

Congrats on getting back into sugaring! Once its in your blood you its all you think about! I have a 4x12 raised flu evaporator oil fired built by AA. I love it, works real well for us. I had Nelson make the front pan similar to a revolution pan. We don't reverse flow but rather we try to clean the pan every 100 gallons of syrup made. We had new Waterloo hoods so he made the pans to fit our hoods. My cousin has a complete 2x8 evaporator with hoods from AA. Actually the hoods are connected together. I like the rigidity of that setup. Just make sure he goes big enough with the steam pipes. My cousins are 8". I think they should have been 10". Another thing, he will make the pan connection with trim clamp sanitary fittings if you ask for them. I didn't know that so we have SS threaded fittings on ours. We also had him put a second thermometer port on our front pan for our auto drawoff. We use the standard port for a thermometer which is nice to have to compare with the auto drawoff. They are.both in the syrup through.
Another thing we did. Lol We were used to our small brothers floats, so we gave him our old floats and had him install the adjustment mechanism onto the new floats. Only thing is we rarely have to adjust them once we.get rolling.
Last thing is we would never go back to wood! Just like we will never boil raw sap again either!
Glad you will be back boiling Dave!

[Pdiamond]

Dave, I am glad you are going to get what you want and get back into the business of making syrup. It's great that you are feeling so much better now.

[Ghs57]

I had similar shut down issues on my wood fired 2x6 this year. One time I was below the draw off port, and we went to the collection tank to scavenge what sap was coming in. After that we were actually talking about oil fired evaporators, and how easy it would be to shut down. It would be a consideration if I ever upgrade from here.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Congrats Dave, you won’t be disappointed in switching to oil. Full throttle from start to end. That’s a good price, I second having the tri-clamp fitting set up. We are fortunate to have a very good stainless welder close by. He converted our pans on our older Darveau evaporator to tri clamp fittings and made us a spare pan. He will do our hood and preheater when we move into the new shack.

[maple flats]

Thanks for the encouraging remarks.
To comment on some of the remarks. I used to have a mark on my head tank level gauge, just inside the sugarhouse wall I had a T in the line, with a clear vinyl tube reached up and over the high endwall and hung back down to tank level). That tubing had a mark on it for 20 gallons remaining in the head tank. When I got to that level, I quit adding wood and at about 10-12 gal mark I ran it all into the fluepan and emptied the pre-heater in the hood. Then I drained the raised flue pan float box and dumped the contents back into the still boiling flue pan. At that point, the connection between the float box and the flue pan ran new, boiled sap into the box. Then after the coals were 99% burned down, I placed a cover on each opening. I had made a cover for the float box, the syrup pan float boxes (2) and the whole syrup pan. Then I drained the tankless water heater, turned the lights off and went home.

[maple flats]

I'm likely going to add a hood, a 100+/- head sap (head) tank and a 20 gal +/- draw-off tank to my order if the prices sound OK.

[BAP]

Why are you ordering it as a wood fired if you plan on putting an oil burner in it?

[maple flats]

Good question, A&A was by far the lowest price, but they do not offer oil, that's why I'll be converting. Besides that, in case of SHTF I will be able to switch to wood if oil isn't available or whatever. That's why I'm ordering wood fired while planning to use oil. I likely could have ordered it with no door, but then if needed to go to wood I'd need to get or make a door.