fuel oil consumption

[Brent]

We'll this year we added 150 or so taps on a pipeline and that put us over the top for the wood supply. A week, the best week, before the season ended here, I was out of wood and out of energy to do anything about it.

Soooo.... the aging process looks like it might win.

What are the thoughts about converting my 2' x 6' Phaneuf from wood to oil.

What kind of oil consumption would it take?

I'm already splitting wood for next year, but we heat our house, the neighbor's house and the evaporator with wood ... 63 years old and no hydraulic splitter (yet).
And the bush isn't big enough to keep up with supply side without starting to cut the maples soon.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I feel your pain. I started out with wood on my 2x8 back in 91 and all was well but I spent $450.00 on wood the first year and then converted to oil. That was when oil was about .85 per gallon then fast forward to 07 and 08 and I was thinking wood wood give me cheap wood. Now this year with oil at $1.64 a gallon I was burning 6.5 gallons per hr at $1.64 =$10.64 per hr. I was drawing of about 3.50 gallons of syrup that I got $115.50 wholesale so Im happy with the way things turned out (this year).
I would go for the oil if the price doesnt go to crazy. Its a matter of time and what you can do with it. Some will say pallets and free wood but its time consuming and your time is worth something. If you heat with wood then Im sure that free wood has enterd your mind.

[Brent]

6.5 GPH on a 2 x 8 does not sound too outrageous.

so the next question is how involved is a conversion?

I've got a place for a tank, and got the electicity to run it, and 1 second to start and 1 second shut down sure has some appeal, gee I could even put a float switch in the tank to shut it down automatically when I'm not so sharp at 2:30 AM.

[Grade "A"]

I have a 4 gph nozzle on my 2x6 and it has a great boil (too much sometimes) with a 450 stack temp.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Brent you would be looking closer to the 4.5 GPH put up some pics of the arch. Going from wood to oil is alot easer that oil to wood. Most often your looking at replacing the door with a 1/4-3/8 steel plate and sheet metal work on the inside to bring the firebox and flue transition up to the pans and fire blanket that you can get from Ebay.
I would say with a gun off ebay blanket and sheet metal your under $500.00 for the arch part of the conversion.

[Brent]

I've put some pictures of the evap and a view looking into the arch at the very bottom of this page on our web site
http://www.duffyslanemaple.ca/Making-syrup/making-syrup.html
disregard the extra peice of angle laying inside.

We have a machine shop so I could make a solid plate with a couple of pins that would fit into the door hinge pins. I'm thinking I might want to lay a plate over the grates.
It's a raised flue and I have it set with only about 3/4" under the bottom of the flues. I also put 2 air injector tubes just under the syrup pan blowing down. I'm guessing I should not be using them with an oil burner.

Where are suggesting I might need addtional insulation ???
The slope at the back of the arch is well insulated now. I can put my hand on it while in full boil.

Thanks

[Haynes Forest Products]

that rig would be easy to convert. Covering the grates and then covering with blanke would be a great way to go. I would cover all exposed metal in thye combustion chamber and under the flue pan would be recommended if its not bricked. In my arch I have SS bolts, washers and nuts that were holding the blanket in. They are all gone in the high heat areas. They just flaked away from the heat. I would build up the back of the combustion chamber so the oil gun flame hits it and scatters in all directions for better heat coverage. Nice looking operation. Question is it as shinny now as when you took the pics?

[Brent]

Nope, it sure ain't so shiney today.
Patrick Phanuef does a beatiful job on them.

The sides have 1" blanket an 1/2 thick fire bricks.

I was thinking that last time I saw a flame from an oil burner it looked like a flame thrower and I was thinking that maybe we had better nozzle technology today to make a wider spread flame. Maybe the plate I put on the grate could have some plates welded on to deflect the flame. Cover the rest with brick. It seems to me the front of the finishing pan would need some help to get some flame straight up to it.

I just did a deal with a trader for a used 180 GPH RO. Hope to pick it up in a day or so. Next season is starting to look more interesting and less exhausting. I ran out of personal steam with a week to go. Probably missed $ 2500 worth of Syrup.

Thanks for the pointers.

[orange county maple]

Be careful with your burner to keep it level if the burner is pointed at the syrup pan (out of level) it could put pin holes in your pan. I know from experince on my 30"x8' domion&grimm.:(

[Brent]

Pinholes ... yikes Never heard that before

[Haynes Forest Products]

OCM is right about that I was wondering why not point it at it and my dealer said ABSOLUTLY NOT. Put the plate down put fire brick over it and make a vertical wall that the oil gun will hit and the heat will do the rest. Dont worry about the deflector plates. I used fire blanket to soften the corners of my arch I figured that with rounded corners in the combustion chamber it would keep the heat closer to the pans and I think it helped

[Brent]

I had a Leader Half Pint a few years back and Leader said to build a wall about 2/3 of the way back in the fire box to deflect the heat up to the pans.

So I guess this is going to be something like the same to deflect the oil flame.