New woods/tubing to install any ideas

[Butcher]

Just found a new woods that I can tube,the demensions are 600to800 wide by 2000to2300ft long with approx 2to3 thousand taps and flatter than piss on a platter anyone have any installation ideas.

[spencer11]

you could run the tubing at the lowest slope possible and put out a few vacuums that might do it

spencer

[Butcher]

I think that would be a little expensive . Id like to budget it around 20,000.

[spencer11]

are you planning on gravity? if not you could do a couple sap ladders, i heard that a 15 foot ladder takes out 1 inch of vacuum out of what if normally would be.

spencer

[Butcher]

I was actually thinking of putting in wet dry lines,i already have 2 woods setup that way, ive heard to avoid ladder if its possible.

[spud]

are you planning on gravity? if not you could do a couple sap ladders, i heard that a 15 foot ladder takes out 1 inch of vacuum out of what if normally would be.

spencer

A seven foot ladder takes away 4-5 inches of vacuum. If you have a 15 foot lift your looking at 10 inches of vac lose. You better have a pump running 28 in the woods just to make that ladder worth while.

Spud

[spencer11]

really its that many inches?!?!? mmm, i thought it was less but i guess not.

spencer

[500592]

I would go with oversize wet dry lines and just tap high good luck

[Brokermike]

Have you investigated the vacuum piston pumps in the lapierre catalog?

[nymapleguy607]

I would look into the sap lifts like leader on some of the others sell they are designed to lift around 20ft and they transfer vac to the lower line all of the time. I can't remember the price but I believe they were quite reasonable. With a 20' lift you wouldn't need to many. I think I would run all the mainlines toward the center to a mainline with the the sap lifts. You could get a 1% slope if you raised the line 3ft assuming it was 600ft wide. Granted thats not ideal but it would get you sap.

[SadSams]

Well I can tell you in my case, I run 15'' vac at the pump (dairy pump) I have all sap ladders (4 total) 7' lift on all and I only lose 2'' of vac. at the far end. It works good.

[bobbyjake]

More information is needed to really offer any good advice. For example:

When you say Flat - what does that mean? on 35 acres, there has to be a little pitch. Is the pitch across the narrow way or the long way, both or neither, to the middle perhaps...?

Tap density must be pretty heavy if there is 3K taps, even 2K is over 50 taps per acre.

The ladder/lifter/pump options all have functions with specific conditions and it is imprudent to install the wrong tool for the job.

[Butcher]

This property is flat flat no slope and the density is approx. 80 to 100 taps per acre in the past I have always ran my wet dry lines with about a quarter of one percent slope and seem to work ok but im looking for new ideas.and want to keep it simple. My biggest issue is lines that dont drain and take forever to thaw, even my dry line accumulates a little ice and when the vacs on it all packs behind fittings ,even stainless steel though not as bad as plastic.so basically I want my lines to drain completely but think that may be impossible.

[Squaredeal]

There are millions of taps in Quebec on land that is completely flat. They use laser levers to set up the conductor and mainlines so they are perfectly level or very slightly pitches. Takes more care to set up, but they work quite well.

[Butcher]

Thats how ive always done it ,relying on incoming sap from branch lines to help push the ,like river with small creeks feeding it, the river always has current with no slope to it.

[Thad Blaisdell]

I guess the lay of the land is important to know.... where can you hook up power. if you can get power to the middle of the long edge 2 conductors going each way would be ideal. you could minimize and need for lifting. I use several sap ladders and they work great. They do not lose much vacuum at all. My thought on ladders is to keep them smaller and use more, rather than larger and fewer.

Good luck

[spud]

I went to a tubing seminar last fall and I was told that you lose 4-5 inches of vacuum on a seven foot ladder. We even had some people there that said the same. I have about 150 taps in the back corner of my woods that drops away and down about 15 feet. This section is about an acre of land and I never tapped it because of what I was told. Do you guys think I could tap those trees and bring the sap up 15 feet without losing much vacuum? Should I Y off a mainline that is close or should I run a new one inch main from my booster tank just for this section? It is only about 400 feet from my booster tank. Has anyone done a real vacuum test to see how many inches they do lose? My vacuum pump is a 125 CFM so maybe this would be easy for it to handle. For next year I will have 6000+ taps running off this vacuum.

Spud

[Thad Blaisdell]

Lets say you only get half of the sap...... that is still more than you are getting not tapping them.

[Butcher]

I would have to use propane power and setting up in the center is not really an option,half the sap would be ok but id rather have it all.

[sapman]

I'm pretty sure on my 11' ladders I'd still get 22"+ beyond them (26"? at the releaser), though it fluctuates with the 2-pipe ladders, as they load up then go.

[Butcher]

When using the sap ladders does it take long to thaw and do the lines drain completely. Also how many taps can u put on them.

[sapman]

I had about 600 on my 2-pipe 1". Don't know if that's too many. Worked ok I thought. I'd say thaw time just depends on how warm it gets, and how fast. You could lose half a day's run with temps only in the high 30s and no sun. They never drain completely. Sap always goes up, then some comes back down. Therefore I changed everything over to a high wet-dry system. Production definitely went up, I believe. I used a laser level for setting up, but still had sap sitting in many places in the mains. I added tons of posts (sticks) and a little slope, and still have the pooling problems to some degree.

[Butcher]

How about 4"pvc for a conductor line ,dont think that would ever be full even if flat level.

[500592]

PVC it would be expensive and would break down in the sun also freezeing would be an issue