After much consideration I will be making some major changes to my operation. I currently have about 1000 taps on 21" of vac. I boil with a newer Smoky Lake 2x8 on a newer Leader oil fired arch. I have a D&G 600 gph RO and Wes Fab full bank filter press. I have averaged about 300 gallons of syrup the past few years and sold most of it in bulk (I hate selling retail). Due to a variety of reasons, I will be mostly selling sap in the future. I will actually expand my taps to about 1150-1200 (about the max for my woods). However, the evaporator, RO, and press will be sold. I plan on buying an A&A 2x8 or 2x10 (my last rig was an A&A 2.5x10 and it did great) and making only enough syrup for my extended family. It will be a major step back going from oil and boiling concentrated sap to wood and raw sap. I dont care because I will only boil when I feel like it, the rest of the time the sap will go from my electric releaser to my holding tanks to be picked up by truck. My arch will not have forced air. I will boil and only be able to hear the crackling of the wood and the boiling sap. No RO running, no oil burner running. I actually miss this. My sugarhouse will become a sweet cabin for family and friends to hang out. My boiling room will be under an overhang where my current sap tanks are located. It's gonna be great. Dont get me wrong, boiling concentrated sap with an oil fired rig is awesome. I never boil more than 2-3 hours at a time. However, like I said there are a variety of reasons for this change. One is that I want to have a cabin. Two, looming FDA inspections are a factor. I just dont want the federal government on my property. Three, I want to return to a time when I wasn't worried about the commercial aspects of all this. Most people will not understand this "downgrade," especially in a time when most people upgrade from year to year.