Natural Vacuum Experiment

[BMaple]

When I bought my land 21 years ago, the sap lines were up and not to protocol. One line had 50 (9/16") taps on a single 5/16" line. It ran hell-ta-da ding-dong. Of course, I followed the “experts” advice and switched over to health spouts with no more than 10 taps on a 5/16" line. Production dropped dramatically and I chalked it off to the health spouts. I have since realized that the loss of natural vacuum was probably a much bigger variable. So, yesterday I put about 70 taps on one 600' run (2% slope) on a single 5/16" line. It’s an experiment. This should be interesting...

[mellondome]

I beleive the old nat vac on 5/16 wanted 40+ taps per lateral. The new 5-10 tap rule is for vacuum pump systems.

[West Sumner Sugar]

We did 2 5/16" runs yesterday with 25 taps each and both were pulling sap quite well. Not sure how much if any actual vacuum we were getting but the sap was flowing quite nicely.

[Geroldn]

I have 3 5/16 lines with 110, 96, and 56 CV2 taps. Only one modest run so far, each line had a continuous stream about 1/2 pencil diameter. It was late afternoon so I couldn't walk my lines to look for leaks. I don't have any 3/16 tubing runs to compare with. I would have to install vacuum gauges to measure what I'm getting. It does make life easier to work with one size of tubing and fittings. I don't intend to get bigger so what I have works for me for now. From the discussions here it seems changing to a 3/16 system would increase production on low flow days and start flow earlier since the small lines defrost faster. I don't know if the production increase is worth the work of replacing and cost.

[Bucket Head]

Long before 3/16 tube was even thought of natural vacuum on 5/16 tube was what people tried to achieve. I could get almost 8 inches of vacuum on a 450 ft. run with 44 taps on it.

[psparr]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160223/7bab7dddcaf2b6c55e3b66ce078875e6.jpg I am getting more sap with 40 taps than I got with 250 on buckets. I'd say worth it.

[markcasper]

where did you get the quantity of cheap vacuum gauges again?

[psparr]

Was on eBay. A seller from Canada. Got 6 for $35 free shipping.