Laterals on Wet Dry

[doocat]

I am curious what everyone thinks or can tell me about bringing lateral 5/16 into the wet line of a wet dry system. I have a lot of lateral 3/4 mains but thinking about the some 5/16 in between to pick up stragler trees. Thoughts???

Craig

[GeneralStark]

Don't do it. You are better off running a new lateral mainline off your wet/dry conductors, even if it is short.

[Maplewalnut]

I am also interested in thoughts since I never understood why a saddle here or there on a wet line is worse than a branch line fitting

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

The problem is if you have a colder day that the sap is running, and a leak on the 5/16, it could freeze up and block off the entire woods.

[wiam]

In a perfect world it would work. My dry line will run sap a lot of mornings until the wet line thaws out. If you run 5/16 lines into the wet line you won't get sap from them until the wet line thaws.

[mapleack]

As long as you're proactive about leaks its fine. I've got a ton of laterals into a wetline in one woods, just not practical to do it anyother way. I had one freeze up this year from a leaking saddle. Made 0.4 gpt. Go for it.

[maple flats]

Laterals should never enter the wet line directly. They should only enter a mainline, then the mainline enters the wet/dry system, no exceptions.

[mapleack]

Laterals should never enter the wet line directly. They should only enter a mainline, then the mainline enters the wet/dry system, no exceptions.
Ok, call it a mainline with a dryline then.

[philkasza]

Ok, call it a mainline with a dryline then.
I am not going to argue with anyone on here but I will say what I believe. This decision basically comes down to a choice: optimum production or just having fun in the woods? You have to make that choice soooo many times when setting up tubing and this is one of them. If you are going to put up a wet/dry conductor system then I would assume your goal is high production and if it is, don't go agaist any rules trying to save a buck installing it. It does work to run laterals into them but you won't get the production if your goal is high production. If you want to just have fun in the woods and don't worry about production, then certainly don't go get a vaccum pump and forget about mainline and just run 5/16 for 2000 ft runs AND BE HAPPY WITH JUST A COUPLE GALLON OF SYRUP. We set our woods up for HIGH production and were able to get almost .6 gallons of syrup per tap, now if you do the math it does not take long to pay for a couple extra feet of mainline and do it RIGHT. Hope this helps.

Samuel

[GeneralStark]

I am not going to argue with anyone on here but I will say what I believe. This decision basically comes down to a choice: optimum production or just having fun in the woods? You have to make that choice soooo many times when setting up tubing and this is one of them. If you are going to put up a wet/dry conductor system then I would assume your goal is high production and if it is, don't go agaist any rules trying to save a buck installing it. It does work to run laterals into them but you won't get the production if your goal is high production. If you want to just have fun in the woods and don't worry about production, then certainly don't go get a vaccum pump and forget about mainline and just run 5/16 for 2000 ft runs AND BE HAPPY WITH JUST A COUPLE GALLON OF SYRUP. We set our woods up for HIGH production and were able to get almost .6 gallons of syrup per tap, now if you do the math it does not take long to pay for a couple extra feet of mainline and do it RIGHT. Hope this helps.

Samuel

Well said. If you set it up right from the beginning, the extra cost of the additional mainline and wet dry connection fittings will quickly be paid off. I have one area where I ran a 100' 3/4" mainline parallel to the wet/dry conductors to pick up about 35 taps, and another area where I ran two 25' 3/4" mainlines to pick up about 20 taps. Sure, I could have just connected the laterals to the wet conductor and called it good, but I wanted to do it right so I spent the extra $ and it has quickly been paid off.

I think the rule of having no laterals connect to a wet line conductor is a good one to follow.

[maple flats]

That is exactly how some of my mains run. They are right beside the wet/dry, most are not. Another advantage of not running lateral into the wet line directly is that it is faster to find leaks. Besides, when a lateral runs into the wet line the gases are also dumped in too. That is the biggest issue with wet/dry, you are trying to just have sap in the wet line, especially at times of high flow ands when the trees start to run in part of the woods before the wet line thaws. But I suppose that a wet/dry with laterals entering the wet line is better than undersized mainlines. It is all an effort to gain sap totals.