Natural gas fired evaporators?

[skillet]

Do they make natural gas fired evaporators? The reason is i have a gas well on the property. I get 200,000 qubic ft. free per year. Thinking of future plans for a 3x8 gas fired evaportor. Any idea how may qubic ft. would be used per season ? Only had 23 taps last year (1st season back yard rig). Made about 6 gal last year. Plan to increase to 35 or 40 this year (again on the backyard rig. Then maybe up to 200-300 taps in a few seasons. We have 35 acres of woods with 10- 15 acres mostly sugar maple and some red. Many trees are in the 10-12 inch range.
It seems no one uses natural gas evaporators, is there any reason why? I Just figured with free gas i could save a lot of time not have to cut, split, haul and stack wood.


Thanks for the help
skillet

[Uncle Tucker]

The reason I don't is, I dont have an endless suply of free gas. You are lucky for that free energy. They do make natral gas burners for arches but I wouldent know where to find them.

[sapman]

I remember seeing a natural gas evaporator on the 2001 maple tour, somewhere north of Cuba or Olean I think. If you were interested, I wonder if Randy Sprague in Portville would know who it was.

Tim

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Sorta like an oil burner setup, DougM has a 3x8 or 3x10 that is gas/propane fired, so it would be about the same and his burner may run off of natural gas, too. Send him an email or PM.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Outside Chicago in maple grove the forest preserve demos maple syrup production and they use natural gas. The pans had tubes running the length of the pans and didnt use a arch. The gas was shot down the tubes and they were surounded with sap.You could always boil with steam.

[PATheron]

Skillet- Couple years ago my friend and I stopped in to a local sugarhouse while they were boiling. They have two evaps, one wood fired and one natural gas. They are relatively large evaps. Not huge but medium size. They were running the wood fired one and my buddy asked them why they werent using the gas one like they were the year before. He said we would if you would pay the gas bill. We asked him if it was really bad and he told us the year before they were running a 4,000$ per month bill with the gas. His evap didnt look real efficient it was just a standard evap with the gas burners I think. Probly like anything else if it was really efficient it might be ok. If you have the gas for free it would be great. Theron

[Jim Brown]

skillet: there is a memeber of NWMPA who fires with gas. send me a pm and I will connect you with him. He has a 3x8 with a pre heater.
were in Nw Pa are you located?

Jim

[maple flats]

Call Leader and ask. They must have some out there. They should be able to give you a usage per hr and from that along with the boil rate will get you to a figure on how many taps you could run. If it were me I would get a set up that would on paper use just at or over the free use number in a "typical season" to be sure to get full use of the free gas. The burner would be exactly the same as propane, just the orifice would be larger because the gas pressure is lower.
If you got bigger you could price compare after the free was used up and switch back and forth between propane or natural by swapping the orifices back and forth.

[3% Solution]

Skillett,
Hey free gas (if it's enough) is like fire wood all cut, split, stacked and being fed into the arch for free!!!!
It should be just like propane (only different), find a natural gas dealer and they can help you out with some of the info also.
If you know a serviceman, even better.
If you run a bit short on gas I bet it won't cost you that much!
Have fun!!

[Dropflue]

Go to the thread-Sugar Inn, then the thread- Were on the map are all the Mapletraders. Scan through the pictures, and you will see a picture of my 2x6 evaporator with 3 three venturi style gas burners. I don't know how much gas I go through, but I know the burners are approx 125,000 BTU each.
My friend thinks I burn as much gas in one night of boiling, then he uses in his house all year. Basicly, there not too fuel efficient.

[TapME]

skillet; just a question. Do you use natural gas for your home?

[220 maple]

Skillet,
Since I see you are located in Pa. I would guess that the words Marcellus Shale has made you very happy. Marcellus Shale has taken over my life the past two weeks since I attended a meeting about leasing land for gas exporation. My neighbors and myself are trying to form a four thousand acre pool of land to lease, we were told thats the best way to go to get the highest offer. One person has offered 1000 dollars per acre for a five year lease with 16 % royality at the wellhead. Probably like a fool I turn that down, they appointed me as spokesman for the group. The truth is I'm a novice dealing with experts. I'm looking foward to getting back to Maple where I'm a semi-educated novice.

Mark 220 Maple

[dnap63]

Hey 220maple, hang in there for that gas lease. up here in New York we have been offered between $1500-$2500 an acre with 16% royalty. I also heard one company is going to offer $2700 with 20% royalty but that has not been confirmed

[skillet]

No i do not live at the property. I live about 15 miles away. I purchased the property mainly for hunting about 9 years ago. With the gas well i recieve royalties and free gas. The well has about 70lbs of pressure which is about 20 lbs less than it was 9 years ago. So i get paid a % of the going rate for gas at the time only about 10-15$ per month. The price would be higher if the pressure was higher. The other better benefit is the 200,000 cubic FT of free gas per year. Which i currenty do not use any gas (no buildings on the property). The gas well is about 35 to 40 years old. I am stuck with the conditions of the origional lease agreament. One other thing if the gas well gets to low for the gas company to profit they cap the well or i can purchase the well for 1$. the other condition is the well must be bonded with a 100,000 dollar bond. This money is set aside incase the well gose dry and needs to be filled with cement.

[Sugarbear]

It takes an awfully good well to produce enough gas to fire an evaporator.Most wells cant produce continuous pressure for long durations like you would need.From what you described about your well I would be very surprised if it could keep up with larger evaporator.

[mapleack]

Skillet,
The paperwork you recieve with your royalty check should say how much the well has produced for sale in a given month, and perhaps even how many days that production was spread over. Last month I talked with Gary Billek, who uses natural gas in his 3x8, I'm fairly certain he said he uses about 1,000 cu ft per hour of operation. So you can guestimate how much sap you might avg in a year, your boiling rate and from there your total hours of boiling and total gas used for the season. It actually doesnt take much of a well to produce between 5,000 and 10,000 cu ft of gas per day, even an old one. So like I said, look at the production data included with your royalty check to see if there is enough gas there on a daily basis to make syrup. If the info isnt included, either find the welltender taking care of your well, or call the company that owns the well and ask them, I just would'nt allude to your plans for the gas. Hope I've helped,
~ Andy