phaneuf preheater and hood ?

[ejmaple]

has anyone out there used or seen first hand phaneuf's preheater and hood setup. i'am looking at buying a 2 x 6 from him and i also got a quote on his preheater and hood. good package price. just wondering mainly how the preheater was. thanks for any responses

[Brent]

I have one on my 2 x 6. It does a great job of contolling the steam. The roof in my little sugar shack is not insulated and I've never had a condensation problem. The sap in the float box comes out at about 155 degrees. I boiling right now. I took the pictures that are on Patrick's site. They one's with the hood are of my rig.
I've been told the preheater is worth 10% in efficiency. Your mileage may differ.

If I had a webcam I could show it to you right now doing its thing.

Don't bother dreaming about collecting condensation. He screwed up mine originally and everything dripped back into the flue pan. He fixed it for me last fall and now I get lots. But it's 1.5 to 2% sugars. For a while I collected it and poured it back. Now I've just plugged drain.

other bad things to think about
1) if you like to get visitors in to watch the boil, they can see nothing. I put a stool up beside mine when I think the visitor has the co-ordination to get up and look in the window, They are impressed when they see that boil.
2) It really complicates clean up.

Maybe save the money towards an RO

You'll love the craftsmanship of his stainless work. The prettiest and one of the most efficient rigs you can by. Lots of deep flues, lots of heat transfer. He can be more than a little frustrating to work with.

Good luck

[maple sapper]

I am some day going to look into a real rig due to expansion. So Brent, are you saying that your happy with your rig and the maker is tough to work with? Or, your happy with it and its tough to clean up. I have seen pics of your rig and would consider it. What was the cost in US dollars? I will be looking at the Bascom show this year as well. So feature benifit description if you would be so kind. I think you also said he delivers it and bricks if for you.

[Brent]

I have no idea what the prices are today, especially for a delivery to the US. Since I got mine the price of steel, especially stainless, went up a lot, then crashed with everything else and is going back up again.

We really don't get many visitors, so that's not so important to me. I think I'd do it again if his price is still as attractive as it was then, which was about 25% below Leader or D&G and he had more surface area with his flue design. The new Leader maxi-flue has more area than mine but they charge for it pretty good. I don't know if Patrick will make one with 11" deep flues like the Maxi-flue. If he did, I'd go for it. If not, I'd go for the Leader, with a hood and skip the preheater.

But I'm the dork that emptied the entire contents of the flue pan onto the shack floor today. ( All I wanted to do was empty the syrup pan into a bucket to clean the pan.)

so much for my brainwaves. ( sleep deprivation maybe )

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Nothing against Patrick, but if you are getting 1.5 to 2 percent sugar out of your hood drains, he obviously don't do a very good job on hoods considering he has built yours twice. How high is the sides on your flue pan above the tops of the flues??

155 degrees on preheater, don't sound like that is his specialty either.

[Brent]

really sleep deprived

to answer the first question, yes I'm very happy with it overall. It has better construction throughout than anything else I looked at. I'm in the machine tool business (anyone want to buy a machining center) and working with sheet metal enclosures on the machines and servicing them. His work is solid. No corners cut. For example his syrup pan is a series of flues with squared off bottoms, welded at the top. Not one big pan with dividers tacked into it. Very resistant to warping.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Syrup pan sounds like the Leader welded syrup pans.

[Brent]

Brandon the flue pan is 19" top to bottom
There's about 11 above the tops of the flues to the rim the hood sits on. It's hard to measure now because its at full boil. I think the sugar is from splash. The boil roils up to within 8" or so of the gutter on the hood. Spash will certainly go that high. The gain for 38 degree sap to 155 isn't too bad in my mind. There are only 4 tubes, stainless, not copper. I think copper would have been better at conducting the heat. I asked why not copper and he never answered.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

That makes it more clear. My flue pan boils like mad but there is 15" from top of flues to top of pan and the outside lip of the pan sits in aprox an inch, so this kicks a lot of splashing back into the center of the pan. He might need to add a few more inches to the sides. Sounds like 155 degrees out of 4 stainless tubes is pretty good. I think he just likes stainless and doesn't fool with copper.

[Brent]

I think you're right about the height. My feeling is that he had done very few hoods when he did mine. It's still not right. The collection tray under the preheat tubes just barely reaches the gutter around the hood. Anyone who has watched water run off a more or less flat sheet knows it will not fall straight down. It hooks around the end and comes back under what it is falling off. Mine still does that, but now that I know the condensation is so sweet, it does matter, I want to boil it anyway.

Side note: Try to explain that bit of physics to someone in Taiwan who makes machines for us and can't figure why the coolant fluids end up in places they shouldn't. Roofers invented drip edges to try to control it.

[ejmaple]

brent thanks for your insight. your might be right about saving for an ro. instead of a hood and preheater.