fuel oil

[PATheron]

I know you guys have discussed this but I cant find this answer specifically. How many gallons of fuel oil will eqall a cord of good hardwood roughly. Say if I ever went fuel oil and I need to burn like 15 cords of wood how many gallons of oil is that. I dont care about how many gallons per gallon of syrup becouse thats all changed by sugar percentages. Thanks Theron

[Haynes Forest Products]

I cant find the thread that had that listed. I dont know but oil in Door County hit $1.89 for No2 and they are plowing the road to get in and deliver on monday.

[dano2840]

i know it says it in the north american maple sugar makers manual i will go look 4 u

[dano2840]

ok so there is a big chart with all types of wood on it (from bass wood to locust to hickory)
if you where burning a cord of sugar maple it would produce 21.3 million btus of heat which is equivilant to 217 gals of oil
soft maple = 190 to equal # of btus put out by it
These are the # of gals of oil used to = the # of btus put out by that type of wood,
this is what it says at bottom
1 crd wood = 128 cu ft of wood and air 80 cu ft of solid wood @20% moisture content 1lb of this will produce 5780btus

No.2 fuel oil: 1 gal contains 140,000 btus burned @ 70% efficiency = 98,000 BTU'S
If you have any questions about the equivilents on other spiecies of wood just let me know and i will look them up 4 you

again i dont think you will need that much oil as that is the amount of oil needed to produce the same amount of btus as wood
alot of the woods rated best are spieces like red oak, beach, apple, hickory, locust, white oak, yellow birch, iron wood(hardhack) and sugar maple,
now who the hell in their right mind would through that in an evaporator? FIREWOOD= $300-325 cord, i would through sugar maple in the evap and ash and iron wood ( its so hard to spit and all the iron wood trees around here arent very big so through them in whole)

[mapleman3]

Appx 66 gals oil, give or take to 1 cord wood

if you figure avg 22 gals syrup/cord of hardwood and 3 gals oil / gal syrup


thats without RO of course....

[PATheron]

Thanks guys, just wondered what it would cost to run fuel oil. Might do that down the road. Theron

[mapleman3]

Theeeeeero, now it seems the way to go at 1.80 a gal... but when it was 4 bucks... I got scared and went back to wood... with the amount of taps you'll be at.. RO with oil would be ok... but not without RO if it goes back up to 4 bucks

[dano2840]

baaaahhhhh
oil is the easy way out
only wusses run oil ;)
if ur gunna run an ro u aught to atleast burn wood and stick to ur roots even if you do have airtight fronts and forced drafts steam aways, level alarms auto draw offs, filterpresses and steam hoods, vacuum pumps, pipe line and sap ladders, there isnt one sugar maker who doesnt have atleast 1 bucket, i dont care if you have 60000 taps on vac right in to the sugar house your not a sugar maker if you dont have atleast 1 bucket, im going to have about 20-25 buckets for Sh!ts and giggles, i dont have the time to collect them, but i will make the time just to stick to traditional roots,
oh about buckets, has any one tried those stainless steel bucket spouts from bascoms? they arent leader i think theyre ipl or lappiere or some thing i dont see from the pic how they hook to the bucket but i ordered 6 so i will find out, at 1.24 or something close to it, it beats 2.40 fora leader 5/16 cast bucket spout!!!!! i have some old 7/16" spouts from way back in the day of diff shapes and sizes im going to put some of those out just because they look cool and you dont see them any more, stick with wood!!!! next inovation is going to be to run BIO DIESEL in your evap AHAHAHAHAHHAHA LOLOLOLOL:D im gunna run BIO WOOD this year!!!!! lol

[dano2840]

Theron
can i have a rough estimate of the #of taps u have?

[maplwrks]

Theron---once you try high concentrate, fuel oil will make sense for you. Last year I made 675 gallons on < 200 gallons of fuel. I won't say that $4.00+ fuel didn't make me pucker though!!

[dano2840]

but thats only 3 1/2 cord of wood, barely enough to keep a guy in shape, thats a little over a 1/4 of the wood i put up this year
mapleman i was just on ur website do you have your 3x8 yet?

[maplwrks]

Dan---I felt the same way when I was 16!!!

[dano2840]

i wont change!!!!!.....NEVER!!!!!!
ive got plenty of accses to 100's of acres of land with dead timber on it, why pay money to fire my evap??????
plus it keeps me on my toes making sure ive get it all in before the summer is 1/2 way done so its dry,
it keeps me working HARD.
well i dont see running saws and driving tractors and swinging axes as work
so it keeps me playing......HARD
;)

[PATheron]

Mike- Thats what I was thinking. I really dont know on the taps for sure but I think Im bearing down on 4000. Thing is thats not honest becouse of a bunch of cull trees in a tight stand of young maples that will be thinned. Im somewhere between 3500 and 4. Once Im totally done Ill get a good accurate count and what they are so we can get an Idea of the performance. Theres quite a lot. Main thing is Im trying to really have the lines done up right becouse with that many connections Im only at about 1.5 cfms at this point with the vac pump. So I need to be very carefull about good tight system. Im not opposed to the oil with the high concentrate becouse I look at any efficiency or streamlining of labor as an opportunity to do more volume. I dont mind the idea of paying more if I can make more. Then the wood work all goes away and I could use that time to work on lines. Only thing is I think Id really miss the woodsmoke smell and All that I really do like that. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

DanO do a search for stainless bucket spouts. There has been a couple of threads on that topic. Don't want to get into any specifics here and highjack this thread.

[paul]

Theron
put a good wood stove in the sugar house for the wood smell. your dad will really love ya if you burned oil, no more fireing the evap.

[maplecrest]

as i have stated many times on here in the past. the time spent cutting stacking and burning wood takes time away from tending to more important things like tubing. looking for leaks ect. the r/o gives you even more time. to tend to important aspects of the operation. i started burning oil due to labor issues. i figure that i put the money in the oil mans pocket as he pulls the truck up and fills my tank, much faster than cutting, skidding, cutting, splitting, stacking in the sugar house and putting infront of evap, putting in evap. hauling out the ashes. ect. well that takes alot of time and figure in the cost of the labor. 4 dollar oil sounds mighty good. and syrup at the current price make money for a one man operation

[NH Maplemaker]

When we switched to oil in 2004, My left hand man(a good friend that has helps us for 27 years) said he went from fireman to janitor!! he just keeps thing shinning.LOL JimL.

[jason grossman]

Theron, I ran on oil for a few years, it sure was nice, flip the switch and you're making syrup , when your done for the day turn of the switch and walk away. however, when we built the new sugarhouse we went back to wood. (it was hard to fill the tank burning 13gph all season @ 3.82 per gal.) it was also a no brainer since we do sugarbush management, tsi work and logging, there was just to much free wood in the bush. But, not being a dummy I put fuel lines in the concrete when we built the new sugarhouse, thinking ahead 40yrs.!!!

[PATheron]

Id love that. Ive never seen a big operation like that running. Ive seen Richard boiling though the syrup comes off of his rig pretty regular. What Id like to see is a big bush runnning full tilt. Down here its tough to get more than a couple or a few thousand taps in one spot. Id like to find a spot where a guy could get maybe 10,000 on one releaser. That would be fun to watch. Theron

[PATheron]

Somehow I responded to the wrong thread. Im sure Ill burn wood one more year then I probly will go oil just for ease of it. Working full time I have to eliminate any extra work I can. Hard to keep up with the BIGSAP and the BIGWOOD. Sounds nice to me. I think maybe I can get a 4 by 12 in my shed so maybe Ill get one thats fuel oil. Wonder what kind of gph that would do? Sure would be easy. Then get a big press and lots of barrels around and all set to make some syrup, that and a couple more vessels. Criminy, Ill never make any money at that rate. What the heck only live once. Theron

[maplecrest]

a 4x12 with no preheater will do 180 per hour

[sapman]

Theron,

I've been on oil for 7 years, I think. Between that and the auto-drawoff, it made life SO much easier. Last year, with the RO concentrating to about 10&#37; on average, I used .7 gallon oil/gal. syrup (210 oil to make 320 syrup, I think). Concentrating to close to what Mike does, you can see how easy things can get!

Tim

[dano2840]

Id love that. Ive never seen a big operation like that running. Ive seen Richard boiling though the syrup comes off of his rig pretty regular. What Id like to see is a big bush runnning full tilt. Down here its tough to get more than a couple or a few thousand taps in one spot. Id like to find a spot where a guy could get maybe 10,000 on one releaser. That would be fun to watch. Theron

i have been known to stare at a releaser for hours when we visited a sugar house that had one, i could watch a 10000 tap releaser trip all day long!! itd probably make me trip out watching it! lol
well this year i will have a releaser of my own to watch :D
so happy to be able to run vac this year

[dano2840]

a 4x12 with no preheater will do 180 per hour

what would a 4x12 do on wood? wouldnt it do more gph? thats what i hope to run so i would like to know

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

With an inferno or intens-o-fire arch wood would do more than that.

[802maple]

Theron,

You don't really need to squeeze things up in your boiling area with a larger evaporator, just add on to your R.O. My neighbor has 15,500 taps with a 3x12 wood fired and 2- 1800 gallon R.O's and he doesn't have any problem keeping up.

When we were boiling with oil and had the 2 R.o,'s we were making a gallon of syrup with 4/10ths of a gallon of oil, even at 5 dollars a gallon that was very cheap to make syrup. Also we were taking fuel oil out of that same tank to feed our furnace to heat with and run our tractor, so actually it was less than that.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Theron,

Get Jerry to build you an Intens-o-fire arch type and you can average 100 gph with your evaporator and a preheater easy. At 20%+ sap, you could draw off 25 gallon of syrup per hour or process 1,000 gallon of sap per hour

[HHM-07]

dano you must keep an open mind on all of this stuf , a lot of this chatting is coming from older and wiser men who have been there, i am 71 yo and try not to put myself in a position where i have to EAT MY WORDS GOOD LUCK AND HOPE YOU CAN CUT WOOD ALL DAY LONG WHEN YOU ARE 71. iCUT MY OWN WOOD BUT ONLY HAVE 250 TAPS AND A 2X4 RIG

dICK

[dano2840]

believe me i have the utmost respect for all of you guys,
but, i will cut wood :D :D :D
'till im dead as a door nale,

but i will have a son to do it all by then.......;)

[dano2840]

With an inferno or intens-o-fire arch wood would do more than that.

will an insulated air tight arch front basically do the same thing as an intens-o-fire if i insulate the rest of the arch with Kao wool? or is it a whole nother ball game??????
arch fronts are so expensive,
i dont even know if i will use my evap out of collage last summer i was mowing a field we had hayed for years, i stopped and was waiting for a ride when this old man came out of his house and natrally i inquired about the lil sugar house next to his lawn he sugared there for a few years, He said "yep the wife made me start sugaring closer to the house intsead on the other side of the river, now she wont let me sugar at all because shes afriad i will die in the woods"
i said "across the river'????
he told me there was 3000 taps over there and like a 5x16 they had just put a new roof on the sugar house, no one sugars it because no one knows about it but me, i told him i was interested in sugaring it when i got older, havent talked to him in 2 yrs
im going to though because when i did talk to him i had maid him an offer on a 300 gal talk that im going to need this year so i will keep you guys posted on what happens, maybe i will go find this woods and sugar house, the guy would probably take me up on his 4 wheeler knowing him once the rivers frozen

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

HHM-07
DANO knows alot but he has got a lot to learn

RICH

[dano2840]

no argument there

[3% Solution]

Hey dano,
Where in God's green creation is Waitsfield??
Like what state??
:)

Dave

[jrthe3]

hey dan i don't want it to sound like i picking on you when i read what you write i see my self 12 years ago i am 28 ben sugaring my whole life ben burning wood and i love to get out and cut it but with a wife a 11 mouth old bady and she wants to have another one i just runing out of hours in the day after working 10 to 12 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week i sure will not run a saw by flash light i like all my arms and legs attached its fun when your young and single but when that wife and son comes that you want come back and tell us how much time you have on your hands

one plus of oil is if some think happens that you have to leave the sugar house right now you can,t wait for fire to go out turn the oil off and go

[mapleman3]

Boyd, I have to agree with you on that... Family is everything and if something ever happened it would be devastating!! Wood for some is the way to go, when you have the time and the energy to do the work and if the wood comes free or at a cheap price, you cant go wrong... Oil is awesome! the time it saves, and the more in tune to the evaporator you become, and the ease of start up and shutdown is essential for so many of us that work day jobs !

I am on wood this year and will miss oil !! we will see how this year pans out, i surely may be back to oil..... Danno, I know your joking when saying oil is for wuuses... but production costs and time are the enemy.. so when you can balance both with whatever fuel you can ..... than thats what you do.

[dano2840]

understood.....
3% solution waitsfield is about 30min away from Montpelier VT
in the mad river valley and about 5 min away from SUGARBUSH ski area

[Grade "A"]

I burn oil, and love it. Like everyone has said start-up and shut-down is fast and can save your pans with a close call. I can see that if you have the time and the firewood around your land you can clean up the woods and get your firewood at the same time. I don't have the time or the land to do that so the time I would be cutting firewood I am working and that money is going to pay for oil. I can work and buy oil cheaper than cutting wood but not everyone have the same situation. I try to work on making my oil work better for me. I like that oil is alot cleaner, there is no ash flying around and there is no bark and other stuff falling off the wood as your firing your arch. I guess that everyone has the own taste but mine is oil.

[dano2840]

you can have start up and shut down with wood to i can start my evap up and have it coming to a boil in 15 min and a shovel full of snow is quick shut down ( if you need it because of lack of sap)
but i usually wait for it to go out, ive been around my uncles and his burner has the sap boiling in like 2-4 min and its a constant uninterupted boil which is nice, alot more control also, but the art of firing the evap perfectly and being able to control the evap precisely with wood is some thing i look forward to mastering

[jrthe3]

the snow does work sometime last year i was running low on sap shoveled some snow in the arch when i came back the next night the fire box was empty all the wood that should have been there burned up

BUT my dad swaers he can taste the differance between syrup made on wood compared to oil also flat pans verses flue pans he only like wood fired flat pan syrup

[3% Solution]

Well my son-in-law says I should go with propane.
Naw!!
Wood fire adds to the taste of the syrup, just like in the days of old!!
When you open the door to fire the ash and smoke go up in the air.
That ash and smoke collects on the rafters and collar ties.
Steam also condenses on those objects too.
Then it all drips down into the pan .......... wala ............instant flavoring!!!!!
Now that is the taste we're looking for!!
Dano,
Found your town on the map.
I just have a habit of looking up where the folks on here are from.

Dave