I'm on my 4th hood, 4 different evaporators, the first 3 I made myself, the 4th I bought. I was going to make my own for the 4th because when I ordered the pans from Thor, they priced a hood at $1950 (2012 price) for a 3x8 pan set. But when I went to pick up the pans they asked if I had made one yet. I hadn't, and they showed me a demo unit they had for a 3x8 that had 2 small dents in it. I asked "How Much"? They said $800, I looked at it and bought it. The dents were very minor, almost hard to see at most angles. I bought that hood.
A hood, as you have listed has multiple benefits, steam evacuation, keeps things from falling in the pans, but I think the best reason to have one is the ability to add a preheater. I operated my new pans/hood set for just 1 season, then I added a pre-heater that I designed and made. It improved my boil by about 16%. That's while burning the same amount of wood (or whatever fuel you will use) If you make a hood or buy one, when you add a preheater, be sure to have a drip tray under it, and channel the drips to the gutters to flow out to a drain or bucket. Even on my 2x6 that I made a hood and preheater for, I got a steady stream of condensation running out the drain pipe, on the 3x8 the stream was larger! If no drain tray, that condensate will fall back into the pans to be boiled away again (and again).
Dave Klish, I recently bought 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.
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