Mounting 1 inch black plastic for pump

[workinprogress]

Hello all,

I am a small backyard sugared with just over 100 taps. Last year I picked up a 1" gas pump to pump sap from my lower tank uphill 300 ft (25-30 ft of vertical) to my tank near the sugar house. The lower tank collects less than half of my taps but has some many large sugar maples. It was late in the season last year when I got everything together. Since this was all new I just laid the 1 inch black plastic tubing on the ground. After pumping I use compressed air to blow the line clear. This seemed to work well.

While laying the tubing on the ground is easy and currently have no snow is there a better way? The tubing has to be taken down at the end of the season so what ever I do it has to be pretty easy to put up and take down. If it matters the 300 ft of tubing is a single piece.

[unc23win]

If you have to take it out after the season then on the ground might be the best way. If you could run it over head maybe you wouldn't have to take it down. Blowing it out with air is a sure way to make sure it doesn't freeze.

[TrentonMaple]

I pump my sap from about 100 taps up a very steep hill. I have 3/16 tubing that runs into a 100gal collection tank. When the tank is full I use a 1" gas pump to run it up 300ft of 1" black plastic water line. When the line is full, it holds about 8 gallons on sap in the line, from bottom to top. I just use some valves to drain that 8 gallons back into the collection tank at the bottom of the hill. I suspend the sap line just like I do my mainline, with wire and braced laterally to trees.

One problem I ran into was trying to re-coil it in the off season. I ended up kinking it and it developed a crack and leak. Now I'm just going to leave it up all year.

[VT_K9]

When we had buckets and limited tubing we ran the lines to pump stations. These were barrels standing or horizontal depending on the numbers of taps. We ran electrical lines and pump lines on the ground every year. We would walk the lines after pumping to drain them. We had a couple runs close to 300 feet with 25-30 feet of elevation. We used a 1/2" Wayne pump with good luck. It got to the point as we evolved we had three pump stations and left a pump at each one. That resulted in a couple of spare pumps in the event of a problem.

The biggest concern is sap freezing in the line preventing you from pumping. Either walk after pumping or get a few of the wire pulls and space them on the line so you can use a tree to tension the pipe with the puller and come alongs or tie downs. You will not keep 300 feet of free standing/unsupported line straight. It will need a few side ties or pulling points with the pullers to avoid the sag. You may have to place a pipe clamp on the end of the wire puller (opposite of the hook point) to help with it staying in place. I found this true for 3/4", but no problems with 1" or 1 1/2" lines. If you are not to ofar from me then I would be willing to help out or explain more.

Mike