Tips for taking entire tap line down?

[11-Nick]

I tap on the neighbors property. This was my first year with tubing, so I have a grand total of one 3/16 line going into whopping one IBC tote. Before this year, clean up was simple: take out the spiles and bring the buckets home. This year, I have to take down the tap line. Property owner allows me to tap, but nothing can stay after season is over. It's less than 400', which doesn't seem like a lot. But until I get all the octopus drops dangling off the sides, it is going to seem like 2000', I'm afraid.
For anyone who takes down their tap line, how do you do it? Do you spool it somehow?
Suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

I already took a sprayer with 1:10 bleach and shot into each tap, and I hit the inside of that IBC, as well as the IBC that I haul with.


Side note: I tried doing a search for this. I don't know if it is just something on my end, but I always have a hard time with the search engine on this site. It seems that it doesn't "search". I get hits that are unrelated to my search. Am I doing something wrong? Or is it the fault of the search engine?

[regor0]

There was an article in The Maple News, last year I believe, about a fella that put up and took down all his tubing yearly.

[West Sumner Sugar]

If you could some sort of reel to spool it up on that would make it easier. Keep it as neat as possible. We actually tap a cemetery (I know some people don't agree with it) where we put up and take down about 400 feet of 1" main line and all the 5/16 connecting to it. The mainline gets coiled up so we can easily unroll it next year, the 5/16 get labeled and coiled into a 55 gallon drum.

[maplestudent]

the first year I used tubing, which was a few years ago, I had about 950 feet of 5/16 on one main run including side runs of varying lengths and drop counts. many drops were right of the main run. I took it down at the end of the season by cutting it into sections. before I cut it, I put two labels where I wanted to cut it, the first cut both labels had A, second cut both labels had B, etc. then I cut between the label. it was much more manageable to work with in lengths of 150' to 200'.

as someone has already suggested, I also used barrels to store it in (took me 2), basically just fed the tubing into the barrel and it wound around the inside while feeding it. it takes some work to get it stored well, but it was fairly easy to set back up knowing which labels went together.

[ronintank]

I take the dropper tubes and plug them into the holders built into the tees. When I coil the line I start at the bottom and start by making about a 30 inch dia. coil and use a couple wire ties to hold the coils form then I keep working up hill till I have to add a couple more wire ties to keep it all in nice order I repeat this process until I have it all wound up. It really goes back in the wood nice. I use a pair of side cutters that I have a small rope taped to them with a loop tied to my wrist to cut the ties when re-installing in the next season. I put the rope on the cutters after digging through 2 foot of snow finding where I dropped them this year.

[SeanD]

If you could some sort of reel to spool it up on that would make it easier. Keep it as neat as possible. We actually tap a cemetery (I know some people don't agree with it) where we put up and take down about 400 feet of 1" main line and all the 5/16 connecting to it. The mainline gets coiled up so we can easily unroll it next year, the 5/16 get labeled and coiled into a 55 gallon drum.

Do you cut the 5/16" lateral at the saddle or do you take the saddle right off the main?

I've thought about getting a spinning Jenny to deal with the mainline wire, but also try to find one big enough to use it on the mainline itself. That would make things easier at both ends of the season. This year (my first with mainline) was ok to put up because I had a helper, but I don't want to get things twisted during the takedown. Funny, the help dries up at clean up time.

[mudr]

Never tubed so I can't comment on that. However, I find it easier to search the site using google. For example, if you wanted to search for the terms "take down tubing" on this one specific site, type the following into google.

take down tubing site:mapletrader.com

That will give you just mapletrader results. I find the results to be more applicable than the search function. Just make sure you have that colon with no spaces around it.

[DaveB]

Take pictures if you can. With digital cameras it's easy and I find that it helps figure out questions of which side of a tree did you go on, etc.

[West Sumner Sugar]

Do you cut the 5/16" lateral at the saddle or do you take the saddle right off the main?

I've thought about getting a spinning Jenny to deal with the mainline wire, but also try to find one big enough to use it on the mainline itself. That would make things easier at both ends of the season. This year (my first with mainline) was ok to put up because I had a helper, but I don't want to get things twisted during the takedown. Funny, the help dries up at clean up time.

We just cut the 5/16 off the saddle. You lose about 3/4" of tubing but that just keeps things tight over the years. We roll our mainline with the wire still on it. If you roll it well you should be able to unroll it backwards next season and not have much if any twists.

[Mapleboy]

We use spray paint to mark the trees where the lines go. Just a small blotch next to the line. We then use our tubing unroller (with a few mods) to roll it up. It does work best with two people though...

[gmc8757]

I have to take my lines down also. This was my first year. Does anyone know of any quick connect type fitting you can add to the 5/16 tubing so you can quickly disconnect/connect each lateral?


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[Bruce L]

We use to take all of our tubing down every year,mark a spot on the tree where the tubing goes by,also an arrow painted towards the next tree if you see anyplace that could be confusing

[MartinP]

31-0046-B Quick Disconnect Union from sugarbush supplies

[SeanD]

We just cut the 5/16 off the saddle. You lose about 3/4" of tubing but that just keeps things tight over the years. We roll our mainline with the wire still on it. If you roll it well you should be able to unroll it backwards next season and not have much if any twists.

Thanks. Do you carefully slice the bit of tubing off the saddle to reattach? I've gotten pretty good when I have to do it, but I know if I do it regularly enough I'll nick the barbs.

I hadn't considered rolling the mainline wire up with the mainline itself - ties and all. That sure would save a ton of time esp. setting up next year. I might try it.

I ended up buying a spinning jenny anyway. It can't hurt.

Sean

[11-Nick]

I took my tubing down the other day. Ideally, I would rather have had a spool to wind it onto. That would have worked better, and could have been done by myself.
My wife walked beside me carrying a large rubbermade tub. We started at the top of the tapline and walked downhill, carefully coiling it into the tub as we went. It wasn't fast, wasn't slow. Wasn't difficult, but I definitely think a spool of some sort would have been better so we could have just cranked it in as we walked. But I also don't know how I could have handled the drops on the line if I would have used a spool. As I coiled it into the tub, I tucked the drops (that were plugged into their holder in the T's) into the middle of the tubing coil. It seemed to go ok. I'd do it again for only a few lines that had to be taken down. I would still rather come up with a spool. But short of that, this wasn't that bad.