star sap ladder

[wood burner]

How many taps can you have upstream of this type of ladder? Currently I have about 140 taps on two six position star ladders about 30" apart. I'm looking to have about 275-300 taps on this line. Can I make stars work with that many taps?

[Tappy Sap Master]

I currently have 110 taps on 3- 12' risers. Two of the star fittings are 4-way, the other is a 3-way. I have no issues w/ 22" vac. You might want to add more, a good person to ask would be Ben from Breezy Hill, maybe he will chime in.

Chris

[BreezyHill]

How many taps can you have upstream of this type of ladder? Currently I have about 140 taps on two six position star ladders about 30" apart. I'm looking to have about 275-300 taps on this line. Can I make stars work with that many taps?

Sure can. I have about 350 on one ladder line and adding to this line another 300. I split the line into a wet dry system last season when I increased the tap count and this season.
Original line was a 3/4 and added a 1" dry line. The line runs from sugar house to ladder #3. At #1 & 2 each has its one dedicated ladder. Dry line is a straight pipe but will be changed soon from a single 1" to 4 1/2" lines as an experiment. The 1" sucks as it is very inefficient with lots of slippage.

3/4" riser was not much better so I am tring a 1/2" riser set.

Ladder #3 has three stars on a 1" but 1 & 2 only have 2 6 way stars and do the same work only better. Third star will be removed soon also.

I also inject air with a 1/8" brass needle valve. Opened to 1/4 then turned down to 1/8 turn open as a starting point and up or down depending on the vac reading and if there is pooling at the ladder base.

There has been a " rule of Thumb for tap counts tossed around of 15-18. I used to use the 18 and now I figure around 25 on ladders #7 - #5 and around 30 on #3-#1.

This season I am keeping close eye on tap counts to each ladder and what the vac readings are at each ladder.

I plan to extend the dry line at lest to #4 this season as I have added another mains into the line between #3 & #4 that has currently 1 ladder and if the snow ever settles we plan to add two more ladders to get more trees to the sugar house.

I am spending a lot of time this season digging out sap lines and finding that they are pulling apart at the tee connections. So I have to remove the tee and have changed to y connection for the drop to get better transfer of vac to the spout.

never had tubing fail like this stuff is...glad I switched to CDL for tubing last season.

Remember that if you use a wet dry system; after the first connection don't whip them again or you will have to inject air at every ladder to the wet line. The bubbles that lifted it one time will work on the next ladders.

There are a lot of tricks to make a ladder work well. Our operation has had ladders since the late 1970's. In total I think our ladder count is currently at 11 ranging from 2" to 18'.

Currently I have not found a riser that works as well as the 5/16 riser. They thaw faster, are more efficient at moving sap, and take far less injected air to speed sap thru the risers. I am looking for larger riser to make the system quicker and more efficient.

If I didn't answer all your questions just ask.

Ben

[wood burner]

Ben, So 300 taps will require at least 12 5/16 lift lines?