Leak checking, should all lines move the same ??

[TerryEspo]

Forecast predicts a little run tomorrow and hope to leak check. The Shurflo pump is going to run tomorrow by golly !!

I have some laterals with 3, 5, 7 taps feeding the mainline and other laterals up to to 12 taps feeding into the mainline. That saying different laterals will have different amount of sap in them.

Should all my sap and bubbles in every line be moving at the same speed into the mainline?? Or, should sap be moving slower the farther I move away from the Shurflo?

I am going with vise-grip needle nose and checking every saddle, tee and drop. I want zero leaks.

Thanks.

Terry

[lpakiz]

Terry,
When you begin checking, you will soon see the correct speed of the sap flow in the short "jumper" line from the hook connector to the saddle. The better the sap is running and the higher your vacuum is, the easier it will be to spot the "speeders". Deflect the jumper line down at each saddle and wait to make sure that you can see a pool of sap in the dip.
With 3-5 taps in a lateral, sap should move less than an inch per second. If bubbles or sap are moving any faster than that, that lateral has a problem. Go up the lateral, gently pinching off the lateral with a small vise grips. As you progress farther from the mainline, each time you pinch off the line, the sap/bubbles will slow to the proper speed. When you pinch off the line BEYOND the problem, the sap will not slow down. That is because the leak is causing the sap/bubbles to run too fast.
Pinch off the drop line. If the sap slows down, the problem is in that drop line or tap.
When you find all the big leaks, start over and find progressively smaller leaks as the vacuum builds and the trees start really putting out. I am achieving 27 HG of vacuum on 200 taps. If one tap is out of the tree, the vac will fall to 16. One squirrel bite will cost me 4 inches. Doesn't take much of a leak to really drop the vacuum level.
The distance from the vacuum source to the end of the mainline has no bearing on a tight system.
Remember, the better the vacuum and the more the sap flows, the easier it is to find problems.