Preheater?

[skillet]

Using a homemade dry stacked block arch. Could i run a piece of cooper pipe down thru my block, thru the combustion area or under an inch or 2 of sand(to keep temp form getting to hot) then up the center of the block on the other side. Then into my back pan The entering pipe would be 2 or 3 feet higer. The complete set up is 19" x 108". The fire box is only in the front 32"s then a tapered sand arch. Any thougths or suggestions?


Thanks

skillet

[Haynes Forest Products]

Anytime the preheater is below the evaperator it doesnt drain all the way so it sits in the tube and freezes, burns or rots so how will you solve those problems?

[Clan Delaney]

From what you've described, I'm fairly certain that as long as your tank is above your outlet then yes, you could do what you described and it would work. It would flow, anyway. Haynes has a point, though. When you're done boiling for the day, that pipe would be filled with sap. You would have to have a way to drain it to keep the sap from freezing and bursting the pipe. Also, even buried under sand, that pipe has the potential to absorb more than 212 degrees of heat, which could lead to the sap boiling in the pipe, and possibly burning. As I've read here in the past, an advantage to preheating with the steam off your evaporator is that the sap in the pipes will never get hot enough to burn.

[3% Solution]

skillet,
You'd be better off to run that preheater pipe around your stack.
That way you could drain it, as Haynes said it going to freeze and rot.
As Clan said, you have to be careful of the sap boiling in the pipe.
We had that problem before we got the EEU.
It would snap and bang the pipe, then we would have to put some sap through it quick, we'd get steam for a few seconds.
Good luck.

Dave