lenght?

[5050racing]

I was just out scouting more trees,It's easy to see them now just budding out bright yellow!! and I have 3 nice 24" dia trees up hill but it would be easy to put them on gravity tied together,but to make it easier the tubing would total 450' about to collect in 1 drum,is it worth the cost and would it work at all.# nice trees??It would be a tough carrying buckets,but possible?What size tube for 3 trees?If I just tied the 3 together and carried from there it would be 250 total,would that work?Also it's on the northwest facing side of the mountain how does the freezeing of the tubbing,and defrosting happen and do you vent the run to help the flow like normal plumbing?

[brookledge]

For three trees I would just run 5/16. It is a long run but with the drop in elevation gravity works to your advantage. You are not using vacuum so that is not a factor. as long as the tubing has no major cold spots I'd go straight from the trees to your storage tank. another thing you can do is put a barrel in the woods. Have the taps run into it and then off the bottom have your line running down the hill.
I have heard of producers who use buckets to have dump stations in the woods. Then all that is needed is to walk to the dump station and let it run out by itself.
Keith

[5050racing]

That sounds good by leaving the barrel at the last tree.The 3 trees are close together and way down hill to where it's easy to pick it up.I'll just put a valve on the barrel in the woods may be cover so it don't freeze the valve to drain it so the line coming down will be empty till next draining!!Thanks

[maple flats]

I would run a bbl, but with a good slope I would suggest about 125-150' of 5/16 then into the bbl. Then I would run 5/16 the rest of the way, to drain when you open a valve at the bbl. The trees to bbl distance will give good vacuum and help sap collection, the second from bbl down will shoot out high pressure if you have good drop, even better because the bbl will seperate the gasses from the sap. Don't get hit by it, might be like a pressure washer, HaHa.

[5050racing]

Very new here what is a bbl sounds like a return or something like it tell me more!

[mapleack]

Very new here what is a bbl sounds like a return or something like it tell me more!

It's an abbreviation for "barrel" :)

[5050racing]

Thanks,looks like barrel buy 3rd tree and tubing with valve to fill wagon.

[pdr]

New bush is long and narrow, about 2000 trees total, about 450 linearly distributed for the first 2,500' (about 400' wide) and in stands of a few dozen to a few hundred trees for the remaining 4,500'. (The largest stand of about 600 is at the very back/top.) Could expand to about 3000 trees in future without additional mainline length. Slope averages 5% and ranges from 2-7%. What are the pitfalls of both gravity and vacuum? What are minimum line sizes and manifold sizes/distribution etc.? Would starting with a 2" line and reducing tube size at appropriate distances/intersections work? If oversizing tube size for entire mainline/branch system, is the dry line necessary?

[brookledge]

If I were setting it up I'd go with a wet/ dry line set up with vacuum. The smallest mainline should be 3/4"dia. and yes you can start out with larger size main line and reduce down as you go. your slopes are pretty good so Based on your tree count and the possibilities of going up to 3,000 trees (approx 4500 taps) I'd go with 1 1/2" wet line and 1 1/2" dry line.
You can get decent guidlines from different sources like equipment manufactuers or the NAMSP Manual.
That would do better than a single 2" line.
As for the pitfalls. With vacuum one pitfall is you will not get any sleep with all the sap that it should produce. You can do the math but figure 1/2 gallon of syrup per tap as an estimate with wet/dry line and high vacuum
Start up charges doing it your self with that size main line would be around $12-$15 per tap
Keith