Coupla door design

[Pete S]

hey, I'm miles away from getting a shack built, but like to look at other designs and ask questions:

Whhen you build a coupla, and the doors open , hinged at the bottom,...........doesn't it rain in/and/or saok the doors?

[brookledge]

On mine it is made with boards that run horizontally. So when it is open and raining the rain runs down and exits through a joint inbetween boards. If I ever have a hard blowing (windy) rain I will open only one side. And yes the doors get soaked. But remember they are constantly being bombarded with steam so they are soaked even on a sunny day when you are boiling. The wood dries out when you are not boiling.
Keith

[red maples]

You need enough over hang on the copula roof. at the base of the door I angle cut a piece of 2x3 then took adhesive foil flashing the kind that comes in a roll and put it across the seam seems to work good. otherwise no problems. unless its really windy whe it rains

[Ausable]

On most pictures I see of Sugar Shacks the Coupola's always have doors of some type. When I built mine I didn't build doors and left it open the first season. That was a mistake as birds would come in and sit on the framing and do their business and worse yet - I had a couple of trees next to the Shack and critters - cats etc. - would climb the trees - jump on the roof and enter via the coupola. I liked it open to help air the shack out - so I used construction screen to fill the openings. Have operated this way for a lot of years and it works for me. A commercial operation might not be allowed to do this...don't know..... Mike

[johnallin]

Mine are hinged at the top so no weather gets in and no snow falls in when closing. A rope at the bottom of the door lead up to the ridge and then down the wall is all that is needed to open. They are "hinged" on a pipe set 1/3 down from the top. so they are bottom heavy and self-closing.

A design I was shown when building our sugar house. Never had anything else, but these work great for me.

[Sugarmaker]

Pete,
Just to keep your options open you may want to also look at some non conventional sugar house designs, as in "no cupola" that vent the steam with hoods ans steam pipes. Very functional approach and no steam in the boiling area. All comes down to your preference. Go to several sugar houses while boiling if possible, and pick their brains about what they like and don't like.
Regards,
Chris

[adk1]

IF a coupola is built, should it be the length of your evaporator pans? so If I have a 4' evap pan, shoudl the coupola be 4' or no?

[moeh1]

The wisdom I've captured here is cupola as long as your pan and as high as it is wide. If you ever might get a bigger arch go bigger with the cupola. Pays to plan ahead. I've seen plans for that door swinging on a pipe 1/3 of the way down before and it looked nice, but can't lay my hands on them at the moment.

[Dennis H.]

Plan on going larger than needed right now, you will most likely be upgarding in the future and tearing into the roof to enlarge the cupola is something that I wouldn't want to re-work.

The norm for sizing the cupola is to have the sqft of open doors to equal the sqft of the evap. So if you have a 2x6 than you wanty 12sqft of opening in the cupola. Divide by 2 and each door would be 1x6'. Again I would go bigger.

Then comes the thing on which way should the doors swing. Up or down. Mine swings down. Very simple to build but you will need rope and pulleys to open it and to close it. The biggest problem with this design is if it is raining the rain may come in the open doors. The other option is up swing doors. They would be self closing and you would only need the rope to pull them open then let go of the rope to close. Also this design would solve for the most part rain coming in.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Check out my photo bucket. Borrowed the Thomas Jefferson idea. During the day never have to turn the lights on!

[adk1]

Hey that is neat, are those custom made or just something you had laying around? I like the idea though that is for sure. those pull up or drop down>? also, thanks for hte advice on the coupola size. I will start with a 2x4 and doubt that I will ever go larger than a 2x6 if at all. (although I say that now)

[Hop Kiln Road]

Just screwed a wood frame around some old storms. Hinged on the bottom to the outside of the siding so the water drains down the roof when they close. Coupla roof overhang keeps 'em dry when they're closed.