Pumping sap up hill. Looking for advice

[BlueberryHill]

I have a "bush" alongside my road. About 100 taps in there. It's pretty flat ground alongside the road for about 50 feet from the big snowbanks. Once you get about 50 feet in, the grade drops way off. Probably drops 30 feet over a 30 foot span. A nice little hill to employ 3/16 gravity. I just need to drag a collection tank down to the bottom of the hill. There is NO access down there though other than on foot. So I will need to pump from that collection tank up to a tank in my truck parked on the side of the road.

I have a Honda WX10 pump. Would that do the trick? So basically I need to pump the sap up 30 feet and then over 50 feet of flat ground and then up into a tank in my truck. I don't want to invest some kind of tubing or hose if this won't work with my little WX10. Hoping that someone else might be doing something similar and might have some advice on the best way to do this or the best thing to buy to make it happen. Do I just want to use 1.5" mainline? At this point I think I would rather just keep doing these trees with buckets if I can't do this with the pump I have. Don't want to spend on a bigger one right now. Would rather spend on a 2x4 flue pan if I could find one.

[BlueberryHill]

Well, I should have looked back at other posts before I posted this. I just got my question answered by reading a similar thread from a while back. It looks like others are successfully pumping similar rises and distances with WX10s. I saw one guy mentioned he pumps up through 1" mainline which is what I was considering. Would anyone else suggest 1" mainline, or is there a better way that I am not thinking about?

[StayinLowTech]

I don't pump quite as far but do it with Honda pump and 1" line with no problems.

[foursapsyrup1]

I'll be using a Honda WX10 to pump 500 feet with a fifty foot rise as soon as I get some sap.. Hope it works.

[Russell Lampron]

My rise is about 25' and the distance is 1500' and I was able to pump sap that far with a 1" pump line and a Honda WX10 pump. It was a little slow so I now have a 2" pump and use a 1 1/4" pump line.

[VT_K9]

Go to the Honda website. They have a link to a chart which will show you what to expect in your circumstances. We used to to identify the WH15 would likely be the best choice for our situation.

In the past we had a rise of about 40 feet and a distance of about 400 feet to move sap from a 275 gallon tote. We used a Wayne 1/2 hp electric pump and moved the sap through 3/4" black poly pipe. It worked, but it took awhile...maybe 30 minutes for a full tote.

This year we extended our line another 480 feet and another 40 drop. We used the Honda chart to find a pump to empty our 500+ gallon tank. We found the WH15 was likely the most effective pump. We are using 1 1/2" black poly pipe. We are expecting to have about 70 gallons left in the pipe when the tank is empty which we are going to haul up in the four wheeler.

I would look at a gas pump and try the 3/4" line. See if you can find a used pump which you can trust was used only for sap and/or water. Otherwise I would go new. I am sure somebody will be along to discuss the use of certain pumps which need to be certified for pottable water too.

Good luck,

Mike

[hilltop tapper]

Yesiree I pump 25 ft elevation over 900 ft length of 1in poly with an earthquake wp 4310 which has very similar specs. Im sure it will work for ya. Would recomend 1in line.