question on vacuum

[farmer12071]

I have a sugar bush that i ran tubing through 2 years ago.its a gravity system as its all down hill in a gut or valley,the issue i have this winter is 2-3ft of snow almost impossible to get to my tank,i have an old surge vacuum pump with out a motor and i have an old pressure washer with a good running honda that i want to use on the vacuum pump then plumb it to a 55 gallon poly drum an run a line down to my sap tank to suck sap to the upper tank i dont want to put my sapline on vacuum i just want to suck the sap uphill,can i just run a line down to the lower tank or do i have to use ladders,this is a tight budget operation(like free or backyard engineering or it doesnt happen)or i wouldve just bought a pump to do it,i figure about 200 ft with about 20-30ft rise ive put a poly drum under vacuum before an have reached about 20 inches before it started to suck in so i dont see why it wouldnt work i plan on using all 1\2" line because i have alot of it,im looking for some insight on this brainstorm,i've been bucketing the sap up the hill

[markct]

How far downhill is it? With 20 in of vac it will only lift 15 to 20 ft at most and be pretty slow. A pump would be a much better option
I just reread your post and realized you say 30ft, that aint gona happen gota pump it from the bottom.

[farmer12071]

speed isn't an issue,my tank is only 100 gallons I have several poly drums from our pear extract and I have thought about placing a couple on the hill side and with a vacuum line to each and pull up the hill in stages to make it not so steep,my gathering wagon behind my snowmobile and fourwheeler is only 35 gallons so I make several trips anyway,it stinks right now because I been bucketing the sap uphill because I been stuck twice trying to get to my tank

[TheMapleMoose]

Might be better off with a shallow well pump.

[BreezyHill]

Your problem is going to be a releaser. The poly drums will not make it thru a day and stay intact.
You can make a quick releaser out of 3" pvc, 1 3way selinoid valve and a regular solenoid valve, one swing check valve, you will also need to make a water trap out of 3" pvc with a cheap float valve from like ebay. There are a few other fittings for the pvc tube to make the releaser for plumbing to your line.

Since the season is upon us if may be quicker to put a few extension cords and a small pump at the tank and pump it up the grade. If your are looking to go to vac on the system then send me a pm and I will sketch out the releaser and a order list for parts. build time is around 90-120 minutes after you have all the parts. getting parts on ebay could take a week with whipping standard or waiting for auctions to end.

Good Luck!

Ben