Installing Electrical Service for Vacuum

[PerryW]

Just talked to New Hampshire ELectric Coop (my power company).

Looks like I have to pay a $190 engineering fee to get a technician out there to tell me how much more I have to pay to get service for a vacuum pump.

The Monthly Base Charge is $23.24 per month which I would have to pay even with no power usage or pay $180 to have it turned off.

Someone here talked about a Glen Goodrich Vacuum w/ no releaser that could run on an batteries/ inverter?

[jmayerl]

Why not a gas powered vacuum pump?

[mapleack]

How far is your tank location from your house? Could you put the pump at your house and run a dry vacuum line to the releaser?

[RollinsOrchards]

$200 will buy you a cheap gasoline engine, and a lot of vacuum pumps are belt driven.

Of course I like mapleack's thought process as well.

[Russell Lampron]

4 gallons of syrup will pay for the engineering fee. A 1/2 gallon a month will take care of the service fee. My 100 buckets got me 330 gallons of sap this year. My 700 on vacuum got me 7500 gallons of sap. It won't take long for the vacuum to pay for itself. A pump with a gas motor needs to be fed gas at $20 or so per 5 gallons which will last about a day. Electricity is pocket change for the same period and a lot less maintenance. Whatever the cost get the electricity hooked up. You will be glad that you did.

[Greenwich Maple Man]

4 gallons of syrup will pay for the engineering fee. A 1/2 gallon a month will take care of the service fee. My 100 buckets got me 330 gallons of sap this year. My 700 on vacuum got me 7500 gallons of sap. It won't take long for the vacuum to pay for itself. A pump with a gas motor needs to be fed gas at $20 or so per 5 gallons which will last about a day. Electricity is pocket change for the same period and a lot less maintenance. Whatever the cost get the electricity hooked up. You will be glad that you did.

I could not agree with this more. I'm running four vacuum pumps with gas motors. It is a nightmare. The cost is unreal and then the cost of driving and fueling them everyday as opposed to just hauling the sap back. I'm doing something totaly different for next year. I'm either running drylines or electric but the gas motors are going. Please trust me when I say do the work and spend the money you will get more sap and have way less headaches in the end. As a result you will make way more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[PerryW]

Russell, It's just that I'm soooo cheap. I have difficulty prying my wallet open and when I do, it's covered with cobwebs and dust.

No I know you guys are right. Running a gas motor non-stop is no fun

But I do have a solar PV array and 210 AMP hour battery storage with a 1500/2500 watt inverter which might do it?

I know eventually I'll get power at the site because it's a good building site for a house or a sugarhouse. Getting an excavator in there after road bans come off and fixin up the entrance to get a log truck in there. Gonna have a logger do some thinning and using a patch of softwood to pay for the excavation. The maples are in serious need of thinning and I want to do it before I suck the bejesus out of them

Here's my bush and the current mainlines (all 3/4"). There three pipes that enter the tank, From left to right there's 200 taps, 200 taps and 100 taps. I was thinking of upping the bottom half of the 200 tap mainlines to 1"????? It's pretty steep, and I'd rather avoid wet/dry if I can... I will also install additional 3/4" branch lines and extend the mainlines further up the slope. RIght now, I have laterals that go 400-500' up to the back line with 40-50 taps each!

5703

[Greenwich Maple Man]

Russell, It's just that I'm soooo cheap. I have difficulty prying my wallet open and when I do, it's covered with cobwebs and dust.

No I know you guys are right. Running a gas motor non-stop is no fun

But I do have a solar PV array and 210 AMP hour battery storage with a 1500/2500 watt inverter which might do it?

I know eventually I'll get power at the site because it's a good building site for a house or a sugarhouse. Getting an excavator in there after road bans come off and fixin up the entrance to get a log truck in there. Gonna have a logger do some thinning and using a patch of softwood to pay for the excavation. The maples are in serious need of thinning and I want to do it before I suck the bejesus out of them

Here's my bush and the current mainlines (all 3/4"). There three pipes that enter the tank, From left to right there's 200 taps, 200 taps and 100 taps. I was thinking of upping the bottom half of the 200 tap mainlines to 1"????? It's pretty steep, and I'd rather avoid wet/dry if I can... I will also install additional 3/4" branch lines and extend the mainlines further up the slope. RIght now, I have laterals that go 400-500' up to the back line with 40-50 taps each!

5703

Stop being so dang cheap ! You are going to have to spend it to make it. Run the power and install the wet -dry lines. But be sure to do the power. I will send you my address so as to recieve my thankyou note at the end of next season. I bet you have moths fly out when you pay for something ! HAHA

[wiam]

I ran an sp-22 for a season and a half on a gas engine. What a pain. I put a bigger tank on it so it would run all day but there were times when I would go check an hour after I started it and muffler would be cold. I now have about 1600' of 1.25" vac line and electric. When I turn it on it is on. I do not have to go fill it in the middle of the night to keep it going all night. I am sure I am getting more sap now.

[sapman]

Yup, put in the power. Just got my power bill. All told I paid $140 for electric. I usually spend near $1000 on gas. This was a short season, but still I bet I'd been $700 or so. And the Busch is really good about low power consumption. I'll have to pay $23 even when I don't use anything, but here they'll turn it off and back on for free, as long as it's less than 6 months.

[Russell Lampron]

I too have a problem opening my wallet. I did the gas motor thing the first year that I had vacuum. It was such a PITA that I spent the money for the 1200' of pipe to go from my sugar house to my releaser and put the electric motor back on. When it comes to tools and equipment it is worth it to spend the money up front and do it right the first time.

That inverter is good for about 15 amps which will run a small vacuum pump but what happens when you have an all night run or a stretch of cloudy days? The sap will keep flowing with vacuum any time that the temp is above freezing rain or shine. I run my vacuum pump non stop for 3 or 4 days in a row sometimes.

[tuckermtn]

I think the one that Goodrich's has is a small diaphram pump that is good for about 500 taps, but it doesn't generate a lot of CFM so it has to be a tight system.