another idea for a preheater

[jrthe3]

i have searched and can't find any thing so far on this has anyone tried a coil out of a hot water base board heater to heat sap mount 2 or 3 under steam hood with all them fins i think you get good heat transfer i looked at some today the copper pipe they are made out of say for pottable water so i think they be food grade what everyones thoughts

[Haynes Forest Products]

My first preheater was the cut offs from baseboard heaters and it worked well. Im not sure how well my production was because I had it sitting on the dividers in the flue pan without a codensate pan. BUT there was a heck of alot of steam that didnt hit the tubes so I might have gained. The sap was good and hot coming out. I used the finned tubes that had the plastic corner guards that helped support it. I also layed a sheet of SS on top and things started to vapor lock:mad:

[cncaboose]

My preheater is 4 parallel baseboard pipes with fins. We don't have a hood so it doesn't get the water as hot as a hooded system but it clearly makes a difference. You really need something to catch the condensate, otherwise you are repeatedly boiling the same water. I have the heater pipes mounted with points down and a small v-shaped trough under each to catch the water. It runs a steady stream when we are boiling into a 5 gallon bucket, giving us warm water in a sugarhouse with no running water. The whole rig hangs from the rafters with stainless cable.

[maple flats]

If you use fin tube from baseboards do not use old recycled tube. Most were soldered with 50/50 and used ones may have a boiler treatment residue in them. You can however use new fin tube, and be sure to solder with lead free solder.

[smitty76]

And deffinently need to contain the condensate. we contain ours and it is alot.