Indiana Vacuum Pumps

[jrmaple]

I am looking at buying an Indiana Gas Vacuum Pump, either the 20 CFM or 35 CFM, I was wondering if anybody else used these pumps and if they preferred the oil or water sealed pumps and how they performed, and also how many taps they had on these pumps… They seem reasonably priced and because I don't have electricity at three of my sugar woods, a good way to achieve 28" or 29" of vacuum without electricity.

JR

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

The oil cooled will work better as the temperatures get higher later in the season.

[Moser's Maple]

have a 35 cfm gas indiana. love the pump! art recommended running hydro oil and we did the first year, but then switched vac oil past few years and pump seems to run better on the vac oil. the gas units do run hotter than electric models, but art claims this is by design to combat moisture issues.

[jrmaple]

Jake, how many taps do you have on your 35 CFM, and how many inches of vacuum are you able to pull? They claim they can reach 29", but I'm curious on what people are realistically getting. Have you ran into any issues with your pump so far or anything to note? Thanks.

[Moser's Maple]

have 1000 on it right now, can expand up 1400 max on this system. pump pulls between 25-27, but thinking this is because of my elevation because our electric pump the most I've ever had that at is 27in hg. maybe I just have leeks I don't find?? Only issue we have was a vibration issue that actually cracked the weld on the reservoir tank. Called Art and confirmed it was an issue they were having and sent us a new take right away for replacement. even covered the shipping for the old tank to go back. Like I said been a great pump, only thing you will want to look into is making a bigger gas tank for the motor so you can get a longer run time. In that aspect a electric motor is way cheaper than a gas motor.

[sjdoyon]

We ran our first Indiana pump last season and had no issues. We ran the oil cooled version. When we first started the pump, was burning through 20 plus gallons of fuel per 24hrs due to leaks in our system. Also had a lot of oil pooling on top of the oil tank but once the system was tightened up, oil no longer pooled up. As soon as we tightened our system up, we were using about ten gallons per 24hrs. We consistently were getting 28" of vacuum at our releaser and was getting 26/27" at the end of our wet/dry lines (over 1 1/4 miles away). We purchased a second Indiana pump this summer when we had to upgrade our RO and remove our electric pump which was using half our amps off the generator. Very positive interaction with Art. Very good pump to go with in a remote location.

[jrmaple]

Wow, thats a lot go fuel to be using in a season, especially at the prices that they were at… I'm assuming that that is also because you are using the 14 hp opposed to the smaller 6 hp I'm looking at getting… How many taps are you running on the 14 hp? Around 6,000? Any other input or advice would be great. Thanks.

[Moser's Maple]

jr
we are using close to 6 gallon a day on our 35 cfm
no matter how you look at it the gas motor is more expensive than electric