ennismaple
05-16-2006, 03:26 PM
I decided to start this thread instead of highjacking the one about removing & reusing fittings. Hopefully a quick description of how we do things will help someone else in setting up their bush and other people's feedback may help us refine the way we do things too!
Lew mentioned that he used to take down and put back up a lot of his lateral lines every year. We still do this with up to 3000 of our taps but now have about 1000 taps on 4-seasons line.
All our sections of bush are labelled A, B, C etc... depending on which piece of mainline it is and then each lateral line is numbered (e.g. A1, A2, A3 etc...). At one point we had almost the entire alphabet covered but we renumbered after the '98 ice storm and now we've got more laterals with the same alpha label to simplify things.
All our head trees are labelled with Tremclad Red Rust paint to correspond with the lateral line with a short arrow that points to the next tree. (The Tremclad paint was a trial & error thing and generally lasts 10 years or more!) At the next tree the arrow (more like an upside down check mark) points to the next tree with the short side of the check mark indicates which side to go around. Follow the arrows and you end up at the manifold. This may seems like overkill but when you've got 300-400 lateral lines to put up in snow that's over waist deep you don't want to waste your energy backtracking!
Of late, we've been putting up our lateral lines in the Fall because we're not getting any younger! A lot of our lateral lines are quite flat so we have to stretch them really tight. If we do it in the spring (i.e. in the snow) it can take 2-2 man crews 4 days to stretch all our lines. In the fall it only takes 2 days and if it's warm enough you can do it by yourself. Just prior to tapping the droplines are put on by warming them slightly in a thermos of water and pushing them onto the tee until just shy of the lip of the 2nd rib.
All our new taps are on 4-seasons line with Health Spiles - which is the greatest thing since sliced bread!!!
When the season's over, all the drop lines are removed (you lose 1/2"-3/4" every year) and the laterals are rolled up. A few days later we pump warm water and compressed air through every lateral until all the crud is out of them. We've got a couple of old washing machines we use to wash the droplines. A couple of hours on the agitate cycle cleans them up pretty well.
Once all the lateral lines are down we turn the vacuum pumps back on and suck water through every tap on the 4-seasons lines and cap them off onto the tee cup. We then suck hot water through the mainline by removing the plugs at the end of every section of pipe. Generally, this amounts to 5-10 gallons per section. Once all the mainlines have been cleaned we drain & wash the tanks one last time.
During the season we drain and rinse the evaporator after about every 100 gallons of syrup to help keep the colour from darkening. Every 2nd or 3rd time we'll fill the evaporator with water, bring to a boil and throw in a couple cups of baking soda. This cleans the pans quite well and does not leave any residue. Drain, rinse and you're ready for fresh sap. At the end of the year we fill the pans with sap and let it sit until you can't walk past the sugar camp without the smell turning your stomach (which should be in a week or two). Drain, rinse, rinse again and you're ready for next year!
Hopefully something in this post will help someone out there figure out a better way to do things. Our setup is nowhere near perfect and we're always looking for better ways to do things - which is why I love this web-site. I look forward to reading everyone else's posts.
Martin
Lew mentioned that he used to take down and put back up a lot of his lateral lines every year. We still do this with up to 3000 of our taps but now have about 1000 taps on 4-seasons line.
All our sections of bush are labelled A, B, C etc... depending on which piece of mainline it is and then each lateral line is numbered (e.g. A1, A2, A3 etc...). At one point we had almost the entire alphabet covered but we renumbered after the '98 ice storm and now we've got more laterals with the same alpha label to simplify things.
All our head trees are labelled with Tremclad Red Rust paint to correspond with the lateral line with a short arrow that points to the next tree. (The Tremclad paint was a trial & error thing and generally lasts 10 years or more!) At the next tree the arrow (more like an upside down check mark) points to the next tree with the short side of the check mark indicates which side to go around. Follow the arrows and you end up at the manifold. This may seems like overkill but when you've got 300-400 lateral lines to put up in snow that's over waist deep you don't want to waste your energy backtracking!
Of late, we've been putting up our lateral lines in the Fall because we're not getting any younger! A lot of our lateral lines are quite flat so we have to stretch them really tight. If we do it in the spring (i.e. in the snow) it can take 2-2 man crews 4 days to stretch all our lines. In the fall it only takes 2 days and if it's warm enough you can do it by yourself. Just prior to tapping the droplines are put on by warming them slightly in a thermos of water and pushing them onto the tee until just shy of the lip of the 2nd rib.
All our new taps are on 4-seasons line with Health Spiles - which is the greatest thing since sliced bread!!!
When the season's over, all the drop lines are removed (you lose 1/2"-3/4" every year) and the laterals are rolled up. A few days later we pump warm water and compressed air through every lateral until all the crud is out of them. We've got a couple of old washing machines we use to wash the droplines. A couple of hours on the agitate cycle cleans them up pretty well.
Once all the lateral lines are down we turn the vacuum pumps back on and suck water through every tap on the 4-seasons lines and cap them off onto the tee cup. We then suck hot water through the mainline by removing the plugs at the end of every section of pipe. Generally, this amounts to 5-10 gallons per section. Once all the mainlines have been cleaned we drain & wash the tanks one last time.
During the season we drain and rinse the evaporator after about every 100 gallons of syrup to help keep the colour from darkening. Every 2nd or 3rd time we'll fill the evaporator with water, bring to a boil and throw in a couple cups of baking soda. This cleans the pans quite well and does not leave any residue. Drain, rinse and you're ready for fresh sap. At the end of the year we fill the pans with sap and let it sit until you can't walk past the sugar camp without the smell turning your stomach (which should be in a week or two). Drain, rinse, rinse again and you're ready for next year!
Hopefully something in this post will help someone out there figure out a better way to do things. Our setup is nowhere near perfect and we're always looking for better ways to do things - which is why I love this web-site. I look forward to reading everyone else's posts.
Martin