JP Quality Maple Syrup
02-06-2015, 10:14 AM
Hello everyone. It's been awhile since I was here. I have some concerns and questions about pumping sap up to my holding tank(s). I have a 55 gallon leg tank on the back of my Gator and a gas powered pump I had set up. Worked awesome with my water test. Then I noticed in the pump a bit of rust and white fuzz. I am trying to be careful and mindful of potential contaminants that may end up in the finished product so I checked with the seller and was told is wasn't rated for potable water. I needed to find a poly fibre one. I did find one on ebay. It wasn't available here in Canada so I paid the over 115 dollars for shipping and duties to get it here. I asked the seller ahead of time before I purchased it if it was safe and was told yes. It was made by Champion and I have Champion products already so was ready to go. So I thought. It arrived finally and I started to read through the manual and found "NOT SUITABLE FOR DRINKING WATER" No way. I called Champion and was told by an expert the reason the food and drug people don't approve it is that the probability of the bearings wearing out and they will or a defect would allow fuel and or oil into the product you are pumping so that was a no no. So it cost me another 105 dollars to ship it back. I have a generator (Champion go figure) I could use but trying to now find a solution using an electric 110 volt or a 12 volt operation that could pump my sap the 15 feet to the storage tank. Hard to find. The only ones I see are used for an R/O set up and would take forever to fill. Hope someone has used something that would work here and it is getting close to the magic time of year. Thanks for reading my novel, Jack