I only boiled one year outside and that summer I started building my sugarhouse. Doing it alone and cutting the trees to be sawn by a neighbor slowed it down for sure, but I wanted to be able to say my 16x24 sugarhouse was all made from trees off my land. The next season I had a roof a, walls, doors and a partial floor made of wood, but it was a huge improvement. In 2-3 years I removed the wooden floor and poured concrete.
At this point my only regret is that I only made a 16x24' sugar house. At the time I thought that was huge for what I had planned. Lots of room all around the evaporator and bottling pan. Now just 17 seasons later I have 2 freezers, an RO room, a wood rack that I can carry with my tractor and forks, a filter press, a water jacket bottler, a 2x6 finisher, a micro wave, solar inverter and charge controller, a larger evaporator, a draw off tank on both the evaporator and the finisher, a 28x36" rolling rack, 6' tall with commercial size backing sheets for shelves (often used in bakeries), a sink and a water heater, plus about 22' of 2' deep counters against the outside walls. I should have made the sugarhouse 24'x36'. I had heard the saying about barns or storage buildings, "figure what you need, double it and you will have half enough", I just failed apply it to sugar houses.
Over the years I have often planned out an addition to add a kitchen, bathroom, and a cold cellar with a hoist to store barrels of syrup but when I had the time I didn't have the money, when I had the money I never had the time.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.