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Shelving


The shelving I got recently has all been put to use in my new shed. I have benches placed along all wall space, with one double stacked. The bench height ones each have one shelf under the bench, then the double stacked one has 5 shelves total. This will be improved this summer, but for now it gives me the storage space I need until after the maple season. Now I need to concentrate on maple.

My pneumatic driven diaphragm pump which is used to both move syrup from one place to another (from an evaporator draw off tank to the finisher, or from the finisher thru the filter or from a barrel to the bottler) has failed. I suspect it’s just sugar built up on the check balls that force the syrup to go where it should. I’ll need to try filling it with hot water and operate it, if that doesn’t work, I’ll open the pump to check for the problem. I have spare parts for all of the common issues. Tomorrow I’ll disconnect the pump from the filter and the inlet and outlets and then bring it home to check it where I can be warm doing it. Right now the inside of the sugarhouse was 9 F today when the outdoor temp got to 18 F. I prefer working on it where the temp is about 62 F. Hopefully I can get enough hot water into it to get some flow, and once flow starts any sugar built up will dissolve. If that fails with the pump apart I can see if check balls are stuck, or if one or both of the diaphragms are damaged. In either case I have spares.

I’m just glad this didn’t happen in the busiest part of the season.

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