When to shut her down?

[danno]

Sap slowed way down this afternoon as we hit mid 50's, but still trickling. Worth running vacuum or do you guys shut it down as the run winds down do to warm weather? I've heard stories of vacuum far exceeding gravity under certain conditions, is this one of them?

[Pete33Vt]

The same thing happened here yesterday, the wind picked up and temp was around 50. I kept on sucking. Thats what vacuum is for to help with those non perfect runs, such as just below frezzeing and when sap is trickling , as long as you have sap coming into your releaser and your pumps not overworking itself I would let it go. I got quite a bit of sap yesterday by doing that.

[danno]

One response is enough for me. Just called my wife, she says sap is still trickling. Told her to turn the vacuum back on.

[mapleman3]

Let R Run.... whats a little electricity... WE WANT SAP MAN !!!!

[WF MASON]

There is a tempture control valve that has a probe thermometer that connects into your switch. The temp gets above 32 degress it turns it on , when it drops below 32 , it shuts it off. It costs about $200. bucks.

[Pete33Vt]

Still the same here,sap at a slow trickle without vacuum, Turned her on a slam here it comes. Sucked all day yesterday. Trees were giving up around 5:30pm. Shut her down for the night, still running slightly, so stuck my pipe into a 55 gal drum to gravity for the night. Might not hold it all but 55 better then none. GONNA PUT A BIGGER TANK DOWN THERE THIS WEEKEND TO CATCH IT ALL. (oops) wrong button. Todays the day gonna fire up and see what happens.

[802maple]

As long as the sap is running the vacuum stays on. I have seen it run down to as low as 23 degrees, so the vacuum stays running until the sap stops

[danno]

Glad I turned it back on yesterday. Got a decent run from yesterday afternoon till about 1:00 am. this morning when I finally turned it off after I was done boiling. I do have thermometer switch wired in but have not used it yet. Pump is only 100 feet from the house.

I still have this paranoia about burning up the pump running it for 24 hour periods. I now have a fan on it, so it is staying cooler. I have no back up pump and have already been amazed at the increase in sap volume running vacuum (this is my first year on vacuum) and want that pump running when we get bigger runs next week:).

[Pete33Vt]

I ended up shut vacuum down around 3:00pm yesterday. Sap was at a slow trickle and I was about to fire up the rig.(With a new preheater and blower system that had never been tried) so I shut her down so it wouldn't overwork itself in the cold temp. After it was shut down the trees were not running gravity. So I think it was a good call. I wanted all my attention on the rig not wondering about pump. By the way everything went OK with the rig.

[802maple]

I have seen it run for hours after it had froze outside when it wouldn't run on gravity. Last year was the time when I saw it run to 23 degrees. It froze shortly after the sun went down but it kept running until 4:00 in the morning that time, and we got another 5 thousand gallons, just couldn't believe it

[danno]

5000 gallons!!!! That's one big holding tank and like 5 years worth of sap for me!!! How do you have time to post!

[802maple]

By the time we got it thru the r.o.s it is about a hour of boiling and it takes about 2 hours to process it thru the r.o,'s and we had another 100 gallons