Venting lines ?

[lfdiaff]

Most of the maples in my woods are spaced too far apart to run tubing but on the east side I have a bunch of maples that were part of a old fence row. I decided this year to run tubing between them to get rid of some buckets. I have 2 approx 100' lines run both lines have about 20 taps each. I ran 5/16 line and there is approx a 4-5 foot drop on both lines. Today was the first day and checked and had less sap then I thought I shoudl have in my barrels. I noticed that the lines were full of sap and not flowing into the barrel. I pulled a tap on the farthest highest tree and a steady stream of sap flowed into my barrel. I also noticed sap was dripping out of the tap hole at a pretty good rate. Do I have some type of hydro lock going on. How do I fix this.

[Starting Small]

I had the same problem, turned out I did not have enough drop in elevation. I ended up putting the taps into a 3/4 inch mainline and I noticed alot more sap in my barrel at the end of the day. I think the slope just needs to be greater for that many taps and that long of a line. At least from my experience.
-Dave

[325abn]

Yes we will resist the urge to vent our tubing. We want more sap not less! :) :)

[lfdiaff]

That is no good. I dont really want to switch out but have to do something.

[Starting Small]

I do not doubt the benefits of tubing and natural vac, I just think there needs to be a significant amount of drop in elevation. The proof for me was when I had buckets on some red maples (granted yard maples) and was getting a gallon per tap and the tubing was only getting 1/4 gallon per tap at the most (also red maples). I had the choice to accept the year would be bad with my setup or make a change. I made some of the lines shorter and with less taps and then put a mainline in for a seperate section and everything started to produce more per tap than how it was previously.
-Dave

[lfdiaff]

Same issue here. The rest of my taps are on buckets and they were flowing good, tubing on the other no so much. The elevation is an issue on my property all 36 acres flat as a board. I have read alot on here about people using 5/16 to run up to 30 taps and alot longer then 100'.Just priced out some 3/4'' and fittings. They are alot more proud of that then 5/16.