Minimum grade 1000 feet sap tranfer line

[windyacres]

The lowest spot for 800 taps is 1000 feet from road. bottom of 1150 gallon sap tank is equal in elevation to road surface. my thoughts are pump sap up 10 feet (1 % grade) plus 7 feet- more to allow inch or 1.25 pipe to fully drain into 500 gallon truck tank. is it reasonable to pump /drain 800 gallon in one hour ??. My evap is 10 miles from bush /limited time. WINDY :confused:ACRES

[maple flats]

With a 1.5" el cheapo Chinese pump from TSC I move about 450 gal an hour thru a 1.5" line 900' long with a 15' net drop. You will need ca bigger pump and/or TF line. I like the idea of setting it up to totally drain. I hope you have better luck than I do, I often get a frozen line. I have planned a rise with a valve to vent the pipe after I pump but have not gotten that done yet. My plan was to set a high point near the end of a long flat area and to let it drain both ways if needed. If I drain the tank I sometimes don't get a frozen section as it passes thru a deep, cold ravine but generally I get ice if we get 2-3 days where it stays too cold. Just one night in mid 20's then 38+ the next day it seems to thaw by mid afternoon. Following the long cold snaps I sometimes need 3 days of well above freezing to thaw the cold section.

[BreezyHill]

In our feed mill we blow the 2" molasses line to the mixer on the last mix of the week or if we will be having very cold weather. A small 5 gallon tank blows the lineout very quickly...10-15 seconds max...and it is going up to the second floor of the mill and thru a meter. Total distance is about55-60'.

Just a thought.

[lpakiz]

Pump straight up 10-15 feet, then slope at 1% or 1.5% towards the road. You'll need wire, and wire supports every 25 feet. Use a clear water hose level to set the grade. If your accurate and careful, it will drain.

[windyacres]

After a more precise grade reading ( hand held grade bubble I find 16 feet differential from tank bottom to road surface(transfer point) add 10 feet to drain pipe plus 7 more to drain into truck tank. this is not feasible. Plan B is 6 K gen to run vacuum pump and transfer pump (100 psi ). on completion of pumping I would dump a large tank of compressed air thru line to purge the last 30-60 gallons. transfer line laid on ground 1.00 or 1.25 diameter. end of season take transfer line home POTENTIAL PROBLEHER THAN murphys law ?? wINDY aCRES

[markcasper]

I run all of my sap with lines on the ground. I have bulk tank the releasers sit in and serve as a resivoir when the lines freeze up. Almost always the ground line will freeze up before the trees stop running. On my latest try at this, there is 1400 feet, the first 500 feet is probably 3-4 percent drop and then levels out. I placed a 1000 gallon tank on a trailer and just let it fill up by gravity. I just leave it hooked up to the tractor and everything. when I drag it home, I'll come with my smaller second tank which is lower and let that fill. The 400 gallon is a zero tank and I do periodically suck the line dry which takes less than 5 minutes. If I have time or want more sap and can get to the releaser tank at the woods, I'll drive that up and suck it dry. The whole thing that started this last spring was I got stuck last spring in the field. Enough was enough!! Needless to say, it worked so well I will be doing it again. All of my pipe is 3/4" white Lapierre to minimize sap heating. You wouldn't want to try this with black pipe!

It is a pain to have to roll all this up but there is no alternative other than burying the line which may happen in a few years and I cant change where the woods is. On warmer days I have actually shut the field line off and let the tank at the woods fill up, then turn it on in the evening and if it does not freeze up it actually cools the sap way down getting through til the next morning. It depends on the day and night, but I play around with it.

[windyacres]

Mark ; thank you for valuable tips. I can,t gravity drain tank but am hoping one hour or less to pump thru. my big concern is proper drainage of pipe after pumping thru one inch black foodgrade (recycled mainline). I have a 250 gallon stainless pressure vessel -3/16 wall could be used to vacuum line out. I think there would be about 40 gallons sap left in lin e ie 100 $ syrup lost if drained on ground after each pump. I could hang pipe 5 feet off ground ,and leave year to year. there is no shade as I clearcut a red pine stand thru transfer route.