basic tubing question, help please ??

[TerryEspo]

Hello To Everyone.

Once again I am getting excited for the upcoming season. I am looking forward to hearing from DON, who got his new unit last year, I love his stories and pics !!

I want to use less buckets and more tubing this year.

I will just be useing gravity no machines for vacuum.

My questions are about the easiest way to run lines.

I am thinking about having 25 or so barrels to collect from apprx. 150 taps. Instead of walking tree to tree collecting buckets, I want to take advantage of tubing and have many lines leading to large collection buckets/barrels.

Can I use the blue line that connects to the spile as my "mainline" ? I hope to have say 25 taps going into each barrel. Is there a correct number of taps that can be used with that size line ?

Can a spile be 30 feet away from a barrel, will the sap run that far, provided yes, it will be downhill. I ask this because I have some far away trees that are a pain when walking to them to empty a single bucket.

Any input is appreciated. I have many barrels and lots of blue line, connectors etc. Just looking for any tips.

I hope we all have a great season this year. I look forward to reading all the posts this great site provides for us !!

[spencer11]

the ideal way would be to run a mainline(larger tubing-1/2", 3/4" etc) into 1 big tank, but your way will work to, you can have 25 or so taps on the line(lateral line) and yes you can use the line you already have to go from your tap and weave it between the trees then go to the barrels, and yes sap will travel that far if its down hill, with the small lines get as much slope you possibly can

[red maples]

you will be fine. as long as you have a downward slope you can go alot of taps per legnth of tubing and as the sap goes through the tubing it will create a natural vacuum. you also want to make sure the end of the line is closed. no openings in the line except where the sap comes out.

Now you can hit trees that are far away thaats fine. just make sure your lines are tight you don't want any sags that will hold up sap. also you wanna make sure your lines and the trees you are tapping are in a fairly straight line I find that alot of sharp turns slow the sap and I get less sap.

if youre putting 150 taps and 25 taps per line then why do you need 25 barrels? you should only need 5 barrels? now I am not sure what the maximum numder of taps that are optimum natural vacuum on a lateral line on gravity tubing there has been alot of discussion on here about that. I generally try to do 10-15 but my land is very flat so I don't have much of a slope so I can't really do more than that without getting alot of sags and tapping extremely high on the tree.

Hope this help you may get several different answers to your questions none of them wrong just different points of view and different experiences.

[TerryEspo]

Hi Brad...

Ya, I guess I will not need that many collection barrels, was just saying that I could use that many if 25 lines was too much for one barrel. Glad to hear that 25 lines will flow thru the blue lines, will be interesting to see it at the end of the line, hope to see a steady flow ???

I,m so anxious this year I have been shovelling snow on my 275 gallon holding tank (IBC Tote), I want it completely covered and I may pour water on it to make it like a giant ice block !!

I need to post another question about a main line across a creek, in spring it is hard at times to cross the creek.

Thanks.

Terry

[maple flats]

What is too many depends on how often you can collect. On most days 25 per will be just fine but on the very best flow days you could possibly overflow. For distance on 5/16 gravity, I have a good friend who has 50+ taps on 1 line 5/16" diameter. His land drops fairly steep. The drop is the key. I'll guess he has maybe 500' length and his land rises at least 15'/hundred, maybe even 20' rise/100' of length. This friend collected over 100 gal a day on the real good days, but those are few and far between. It is however possible for flows like that for a few days in a row.

[TRAILGUY]

I have 250 tap with 8 collection points going into 1 125 gallon and 7 55 gallon tanks, and on the 55 gallon ones always less then 40 taps. In three years I never overflowed. A few tips on 5/16 tubing the slope determines how many tap and go by the lowest slope. 5% up to 25 taps and over 15% less then 100. avoid y's where reasonable and run more lines to tank. I was connecting 3 or 4 lines into one then going to the tank cut that out now I run 4 lines into the tank avoiding y's at the lower end of the runs where the flow is heaviest and and there is no gain in natural gravity as you need drop in elevation to get that