vaccuum booster performance

[blissville maples]

I have a fairly long mainline run about 2000' with one inch wet line all the way and one inch dry line going out to 1000 feet. has anyone had a similar set-up and then added a vac booster seeing any gains on vacuum to the end? wondering how much vac drop I can expect. is going to be a beefy pump, hoping that will help. any info would be great thanks

[Ryan Mahar]

In one of our woods, we have inch over inch 2000' with~ 1300 taps.....an airblo 1.5 HP vacuum. With no leaks for that short distance you should not lose any more than 2 psi.....usually we are around 26-27 at the pump and 25 at the far end of the line............ on another line which a 1 1/4 single line carrying both vac/sap, with a 3/4 HP airblo at 1200' distance it is the same story, a max of 2 psi......so a booster shouldn't be necessary in my opinion..........

[spud]

I have a fairly long mainline run about 2000' with one inch wet line all the way and one inch dry line going out to 1000 feet. has anyone had a similar set-up and then added a vac booster seeing any gains on vacuum to the end? wondering how much vac drop I can expect. is going to be a beefy pump, hoping that will help. any info would be great thanks

It does not matter how big your vacuum pump is because the most CFMs going through 1000 feet of one inch pipe is 4CFMs. Your first 1000 feet of wet/dry one inch may only be giving you 5-6 CFMs because there is sap flowing through part of the wet line. The next 1000 feet might only have 2 CFMs at the far end because of sap flow. This set-up would really only be suitable for around 4-500 taps. A booster tank will not raise your CFMs at all but only stabilize your vacuum. I have 6 booster tanks in my older woods. From the sugar house I go out 1000 feet to a booster tank and then go out another 1000 to another booster tank. Each booster tank has 6 one inch mainlines going out into the woods. No mainline exceeds 1000 feet and no mainline has more then 175 taps on it. When I first set up the woods I used 1 1/2 inch wet/dry lines. A year later I added another 1 1/4 back up wet line because my first booster tanks in line were flooding with sap hurting my vacuum into my main lines. I now run 27-28 inches of vacuum throughout my whole woods. If I was you I would remove the one inch wet/dry lines and replace them with 1 1/2 inch wet/dry lines. You could use the used one inch pipe for more mainlines. Whips might be the way to go for your set up. This could double your GPT. I shoot for 25 GPT with my set-up.

Spud

[unc23win]

[QUOTE=Ryan Mahar;290282]In one of our woods, we have inch over inch 2000' with~ 1300 taps.....an airblo 1.5 HP vacuum. With no leaks for that short distance you should not lose any more than 2 psi.....usually we are around 26-27 at the pump and 25 at the far end of the line............ on another line which a 1 1/4 single line carrying both vac/sap, with a 3/4 HP airblo at 1200' distance it is the same story, a max of 2 psi......so a booster shouldn't be necessary in my opinion..........[/QUOTE

I would agree with you that 25" everywhere is pretty good, but if you get 1 gallon of sap for every 1" of vacuum over 20" then you could be getting 2600 more gallons of sap or 50 more gallons of syrup. It might be worth it.

[blissville maples]

good info, hinesight I wish I would have gone 1 1/2'' line and may change next year or mid season if results are undesirable. there is only 500 ish taps however, very nice fieldside trees. It will be curious to see the vac drop, but that's what I was hoping to hear and achieve 27-28 at pump and 25 near end. without using the boosters Im not sure what gain they may have make. I can see how they would stabilize the vac which if lines are undersized may help, if I don't get what I like at the end I may extend dry line and or add booster. adjust as it comes I guess. when you say whips, you mean jumpers from main to main? what pump are you running spud? Boy I cant wait for this year so many upgrades!!

[Moser's Maple]

whips1249612497

[blissville maples]

that's what I thought. last year I never had dry line and had major problems on less than perfect sloped mains with ice jams. this year dry line will jump to branched mains. I know there were times last year for atleast 2-3 hrs where sap was running but my lines were jammed up with ice- lost a lot of volume. someimtes I went out undid the y's and emptied up to 3-4 feet of ice jam that built up. not happening this year! its these little improvements that matter most. I do believe the "whips" will gain aloit of extra sap in early morning times.