Expected Vacuum with my Shurflow pump?

[TerryEspo]

As I am doing all my planning with a new 500ft 3/4 mainline, new cable to support it and want everything pretty, I had a new thought.

Is my Shurflow pump strong enough to handle a much longer run that last years ?

I probably should explain what I hope to set up this year.

500 ft of 3/4" mainline, all new saddles, hope to get 100 taps, say 20 laterals with 5 trees on each. Guessing two-three 500 ft of blue 5/16 line.

Shurflow model 2088 ( I think), bought the one everyone here said to buy, lol.

Worked very good last year with a 100ft mainline and not too many laterals.

If I place a gauge at the last tree with no leaks (ha ha), what could I expect to read in inches of vacuum ?

Any guesses to help me out.

Thanks.

Terry

[CampHamp]

I'll place a bet... 8" dry and 22" wet

My gauge is down near the pump (model 4048), so I subtracted 5" for your top-line location - just a guess.

[huntingken111]

When it was good flow (I had 65 taps on 5/16 line) my gauge at end of line read 26

[NJG]

I'm excited to see the results you do get on this. Last year I had 48 taps on four different gravity runs with 5/16, each emptying to a separate tank on a trail. On the weekends when I was around to boil, I hooked them all into a less than level 5/16 "mainline" with a 4048 at the end. Without any sap I was pulling around 10" and once I had some sap I was pulling as high as 24" at the pump and 22" at the far end, once the leaks were fixed. Once I can get some logging done I am planning on putting up a more legitimate mainline and reducing the taps per lateral, although with the flat land we have I think 100' or 150' feet will be my max.

[TerryEspo]

Thanks for those replies, I really need to get a gauge and see for sure what I get. I searched many posts here before posting and so many topics popped up, answers were from 4"-28", Shurflow had even some negative reviews, I love mine.

Big improvement for me this year will be doing my laterals correctly, not all wishy washy trying save a bit of blue tubing. Another improvement with be 3/4 "mainline, not my old 1/2" which had poor saddles, hard to get 1/2" saddles.

Hoping for an early season this year.

Terry

[maple milker]

Terry,
What were your results with the new 3/4 inch main line and good saddles with short laterals this year? Your situation is the same as mine. Bruce

[TerryEspo]

Hi Bruce:

I never got a vacuum gauge this season so I don't know exactly. I did have good saddles and they worked wonderful, no leaks that I could tell. I had a really long lateral and halfway thru the season loosened the spile a touch, it really helped that long line, after loosening, sap flowed at the same speed as the rest of my shorter laterals, inch per second.
I need to improve my mainline for next season, the slope is not the best and I had a major droop in it, found that droop too late, at the end of season when pulling taps!!

Overall, very happy with totally new everything, best year I had in 6yrs tapping.

Will tap more trees next season and make improvements this summer.

[MISugarDaddy]

Terry,

Do you think a Shurflo will generate enough vacuum for that long of a mainline? The reason I ask is that I had two Shurflos running this year; one with about 40' of 3/4" mainline and the other with about 140' of 3/4" mainline, both with 62 to 65 taps and the same length and number of laterals, and on the one with the shorter mainline I had 24" of vacuum and the other I never got over 15" of vacuum. Neither line had any leaks so the only thing I could think of was that the longer line prevented the Shurflo from getting any higher vacuum because of the increased volume of the extra mainline. I hope others will share their experience with Shurflos and long mainlines.
Gary

[Super Sapper]

I had 2 lines in one woods, both with about 100 taps. The one with the longer main line got up to 24 inches when the screen was not plugged with a growth in the screen. That line is about 400 feet and the pump is about in the middle with the vac reading on one of the ends. The other was about 200 feet and only got up to around 12. I had replaced on half of this line with a run of 3/16 and only lost about 1 to 2 inches with around 25 taps on it. It is a fairly flat area and the 3/16 went up and down so it did not have good slope but still only lost 1 to 2 inches. I hope to get more time to fix leaks on this line next year to see if I get as good of results with higher vac levels. I had issues with all 3 of my pumps this year with growth plugging up the screen and that reduced vac to 0 sometimes.

[Clinkis]

I installed a 600' of 3/4" mainline with minimal slope (1.5'). I had 101 taps on it. I worked hard and minimizing any leaks and constantly checking for sags. I consistently got 20"+ of vacume when sap was flowing. One day during a heavy run it got up to 27". When sap flow was minimal vacuum would drop to 15-17". Overall I was very pleased and impressed. Definite key to the shurflo's is minimizing leaks and managing slope as they don't have the CFM's to overcome leaks and sags

[BAP]

I run 400' of 1/2" mainline with 5/16" tubing going to 110 taps. I use a Shurflo 4008 pump and was running 22-23" of vacuum when running good and 15-16 when it slowed down.