Finally building my Sugar Shack!

[claystroup]

After 4 years boiling outside I have finally made the move to build a sugar shack. The excavating contractor came late yesterday and stripped the top soil and hauled in a crushed limestone base and leveled and compacted it. My shack is going to be 12' x 18' with an 8/12 pitch and 6' cupola in the center. I am building it on a treated wood floor system. All framing above the floor will be with native Michigan rough sawn pine from a northern Michigan Amish saw mill. I am going to make every attempt to make it look as vintage as possible. Can't wait to boil inside next year out of the weather.

[Mead Maple]

That’s awesome clay!!! Pumped for ya! I’m excited for that day to come but will take several years in the driveway as well haha.


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[Sugarmaker]

Awesome! You will love it!
take and post lots of pictures too!
Regards,
Chris

[maple flats]

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.

[claystroup]

Todays update on my Sugar Shack progress. Had a productive weekend and day today until the rain started this afternoon.100_9132.jpg100_9133.jpg100_9134.jpg

[Ghs57]

This looks great. My biggest mistake with my shack is the dirt floor. My plan is to pour concrete this year (with radiant heat), run a proper sub-panel and water line, and build an extension. But this will have to wait until later in the year.

You will never regret it once you start to boil indoors!

[tbear]

I was doing the previous from my phone, my apologies. Anyway, 2x4 frame, cement board on the bottom (i don't recall why) lay out the brick, fill the gaps with polymuric sand (from Lowes), water it down. Easy peasy. A 3x5 piece of steel works too. Nice job on the shack! Ted

[Warpath]

This place has been so helpful as I got my setup going last year I thought I would post a few suggestions after a season under my belt. The wood floor is no issue at all, I do recommend putting down some sort of rubber flooring under the arch. I purchased 2 universal truck bed liners from tractor supply which are 4' x 8' each and they catch any sap/syrup that happens to escape the pan. It is super easy to wipe clean at the end of a boil and no sticky floor issues. I glued (pl-400) concrete landscape stones from home depot 3 high and had zero heat issues, the floor always stayed cool. And you might think the whole thing might move setting on the stones like that but it does not budge. I actually tried to move it just a tiny bit to center my stack perfectly but no go. I used aluminum diamond plate in front of the firebox and that caught any embers and again I had no issues. The only thing I wished I had done about where your last photos show your progress was to frame in an opening at the peak of the cupola roof for the stack. Having to do it after the roof was on was much more work. Here are a couple of photos before the season got started, I've made a ton of changes now that the maple bug has bit hard.

smokylake1.jpg IMG_20181208_170142452.jpg

[johnallin]

After 4 years boiling outside I have finally made the move to build a sugar shack..... I am going to make every attempt to make it look as vintage as possible. Can't wait to boil inside next year out of the weather.

Vintage is a good thing, you will never regret having a beautiful sugarhouse. I know - and have never looked back. Congrats to you for sure!

[claystroup]

I went with a treated floor system instead of concrete for purely financial reasons. I got multiple quotes for concrete and they were all $1200 to $1500 more than going with the treated floor system. Construction is booming in our area and certain trades can name their price. Small jobs like mine would have been aren't desirable when bigger more profitable jobs are plentiful. I have no concrete experience but a lot of carpentry experience so I decided to do the treated system myself along with all the other carpentry work. It only took me about 7 hours to do the floor system myself so it worked out good for me. Also in our township, I will not be taxed on the building because it is not considered permanent. Our tax assessor said it would save me about $80/year over if I had built it on a permanent concrete foundation. As this is a hobby for me all the costs had to be factored in. My estimate to build my shack was $4200 to $4500 total and so far I am right on budget.