Vacuum powered sap pump

[kirkhedding]

Looking for some good information from people who have used these type of pumps. Do they work, freeze up to easily and so on? I can read all the technical info And listen to all the sales speeches, but I'd like to hear some first hand experience. I'm trying to figure out if this would be a good option to get sap back to my shack without putting electricity out in the woods. I have a 1 1/4" vacuum line that goes out to my double mechanical releaser that is 850' from the vacuum pump. I only have about 400 taps on this system. I know putting electricity out there is the best option, but also the most work and expense. So if these work well, than why should I put the electricity out there?

[maple maniac65]

I have vacuumed sap out of a tank when the pump line was froze and the only problem I found was the releaser was not big enough to handle a full 3/4 pipe. It would not dump fast enough. I have a single vertical mechanical type. When I have gone to the open houses most always there is a gate valve closing up the line from the feed tank. Otherwise I think it would just flood the releaser and also to represent a normal sap flow on a wet line.

[tuckermtn]

kirk- are you referring to the lapierre vac powered pumps? I have not run them, but my recollection is they need to be kept in a heated building.

[philkasza]

I was wondering the same thing about freezing sap in those pumps. We have gotten one from Lapierre because we need to pump sap 500 ft. with about 50 ft. of head up to where we can get to it. We were not planning on heating it at all but as soon as we received it we thought about freeze up. The only thing we can think of doing is to rig it so that it would pump a little air when it get done pumping sap. This would put air in the piston then it should be ready to freeze. It does have two valves that are labeled Drain on it so another option is to go over there (2.5 miles away) and drain the pump every night just before freeze up BUT sometimes it only freezes up at 3 AM so no sleep there! :o I was trying to get a hold of Tom Patterson out at Lapierre to ask him about it but apparently he is to busy to worry about our phone calls and messages we leave. This is a too expensive piece of equipment to just go with trial an error approach.

Sam

Just over 2 months left till season 2013!!!!!

[kirkhedding]

Yes Eric, that's what I was looking at. I figured freezing causes problems with all pumps. I didn't know if there were more issues with this kind of pump and if they work well or not when it wasn't freezing out. If it has to stay in a heated building, I might as well run electricity out there. If it's just going out in the woods to shut down and drain the pump, it might still be worth it to me. It would sit about 900' from my shack. I guess I could always use a little gas powered pump, but that would have to just pump down a full tank, then shut it off and keep doing that over and over. I have about 200gals that will fit in my tank with the releaser in there. With 400 taps on it. On the best run day, I would probably have to go out there and run the pump up to 4 times. That's were I thought the Vacuum Powered Sap Pump would work since it can just sit there all day running off the vacuum that is already there.

[tuckermtn]

it always seemed a bit odd to me to have a pump designed to run in near freezing conditions without electricity that required a heated building to run in. they way I see it your options are to build a little shed and have a propane heater in there or some sort of solar charger to run a little electric heater...or an electric heater and an electric pump? could get a lot more complicated from there...

using some of the line loss calculations on some other recent threads how big of an electric line would you need to run a small submersible pump down there? other option is to get a bigger tank and have to only bring the gas transfer pump down there once a day...

and phillazka- I hear you on Tom at Lapierre not getting back to you- they need more staff there or to clone him- I had to call three or four times to finally talk to him about Lapierre's pellet arch availability (they are coming out with a second generation design this spring-BTW)- and that is a 5 figure potential investment on my part. I try and give folks the benefit of the doubt - and I like Tom a lot- but a call back isn't hard to do. Chris at Maple Guys is excellent about calling back and that is why he gets a lot of my business. sorry- I'll get off my soap-box.