Evaporators still need to be attended and burn fuel. RO's can run unattended and use very little electricity which is important to most hobbyists who have day jobs. I collect my sap and then turn on my RO and walk away. 9 hours later 45 gallons of sap is now 20 gallons of concentrate and I didn't have to do a thing. Also, you can build a little RO for about $300. You can't even buy a small pan for that. This RO has essentially allowed my to more then double the capacity of my evaporator without having to upgrade it. I use propane and I have calculated that it is saving me 58% on fuel cost and boiling time. That said, I thinks it's a balance. You still need an appropriate size evaporator to keep up with the concentrate produced from your sap by the RO. Also, these small RO's are only good for a max of 100 taps. Once you go over that a bigger RO is needed and you would need to balance the cost of that with versus upgrading your evaporator.Originally Posted by Mikeh
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