Ball Valves on Mainlines for Leak Checking

[WestfordSugarworks]

Here's my question. To the producers who have ball valves in their systems where the mainline branches from the wet/dry-- how helpful are these valves to you?

To the producer who doesn't have valves at mainline junctions with wet/dry, how well are you able to check for leaks without a valve ?

We had two bushes installed for 2016 season. One 10,000 tap bush and one 2500 tap bush. The big bush had valves on all mainlines and the small one did not. I did all the leak checking this season while my dad worked full time and manned the RO and we boiled together. Anyway, I had no clue how to check for leaks on the small bush and was in favor of having valves installed on the mains- however the installer and my dad both thought they were not necessary. Sap starts flowing and i find hundreds of leaks in our big bush over almost 2 months. I did my best to find leaks in small bush, but without valves (and no vac gauges anywhere on lines), I spent a lot of time listening and looking at the mainlines to try to identify if there were any leaks on it anywhere. A major leak would be audible by putting ear up to mainline at junction with wet/dry, however i couldn't identify micro leaks on the mainline without physically walking and checking every single 5/16 loop into the mainline. Luckily small bush remained very tight all year.

In our big bush I could just close the valve, wait 20 seconds and slowly open the valve to listen for air hissing by.

Now I'm in strong favor of installing valves on every mainline in our small bush, but my dad has been told that valves are unneccesary- leaks can be found by looking/listening at the beginning of the mainline. He doesn't have a great deal of experience walking lines so I want to bring outside thoughts , more experience sugarmakers, to our discussion. I spent at least 60 hours walking lines this season and have not found just looking and listening to the beginning of the mainline to be an effective way to find leaks. Thoughts?

[maple flats]

I have ball valves on all of my mains where they branch off the wet/dry. Then put a vacuum gauge just after the valve. When you close the valve if the pressure drops real fast you have a big leak, medium fast a slow leak and if it goes down slow you have no leaks. i put my gauges in using a DSD mainline saddle, then a short length of 5/16 or 3/16 to a brass female adapter (either 5/16 barb to 1/4 FIP or 3/16 barb x 1/4"FIP (available thru danielsmaple.com). Then the gauge screws into the 1/4 pipe thread, use teflon tape.

[madmapler]

I can't see how it would be possible to know if a line is tight without a ball valve and guage. Rod at Webbs in Brattleboro set me up with a stainless fitting that screws onto the ball valve and is tapped on the side for an 1/8 vac. guage that they sell. When I have a smaller leak, it can't be heard by me but the guage tells you for sure.

[spud]

I agree that the valve and gauge would be ideal. I only have the ball valves and that works great for me. I would strongly suggest you at least use ball valves. If money is an issue then gauges could be installed next summer.

Spud

[n8hutch]

What kind of ball valves are people using. I'm always a little suspect of the cheap white plastic ones with glue on adapters.

[unc23win]

I use a ball valve and gauge on every line at every junction and I also use booster/transfer tanks so that my lines are divided up more each line having a valve. I work full time and install and check all my lines myself. I think the process is faster with gauges and valves because I can quickly isolate the section where the leak is thought to be. I buy my gauges from directmaterial.com for about $4 each and I am very happy with them I bought 25 and got free shipping. In your case I would think that anything that is accurate and fast would be the most ideal for leak detection. Even .25" more vacuum on 2,500 taps is more than worth it in my book.

[wiam]

I will start by saying I'm cheap. I use the cheap plastic valves. Most have been in the woods for 10 years. Very few issues with them. My original set up used manifolds at wet/dry. Any replacements have been replaced by whips. The last one I drilled and threaded the plastic ball valve 1/4" for the gauge. My thought was to eliminate fittings( possible leaks)

And I don't know how I would find leaks without valves/gauges.

[lew]

They are indispensable. On our largest woods, 3100 taps. 1 man can cover the tire woods and bring vacuum from 16" to 24" in just a couple of hours. Best money you could spend in my opinion

[pipeline]

we have white plastic valves on all mains and gauges worked mid season we installed h2o smarttrak system worked awsome cut out at least half of the walking if not more!! was a new twist to checking for leaks vac sensors ar set up on outer end of mains so you know what whole bush is doing. found leaking valves saddles which if happens out away from wet dry line you may not notice frozen lines we were so happy with this system every line we have will be on this system this next season!

[Sunday Rock Maple]

We do the same as what Maple Flats said. Some day we would like to switch to the sensors but I wouldn't be without them until then. One thing to keep in mind is that as your installation ages there will be more leaks to find.

[n8hutch]

Thanks guys, good to hear that the white Ball valves are a non issue.I will give them a try.

[maple flats]

I have both kinds, but most of mine are lead free brass by Legend. They have barb fittings on the in and out. I've only found them in 3/4" and 1", but all my mains are one or the other. On any ball valve, be positive you don't leave it closed when full of sap, a freeze will burst it, brass or plastic. On my 1.5" transfer line, which runs downhill of a tank, I have 2 ball valves to address the freezing issue. I close the uphill one, open and drain the downhill one, then close the downhill valve and re-open the uphill. This way if it freezes, the closed valve is empty. An open valve in plastic tubing will not burst, where a ball valve closed with a ball full of sap will freeze and burst.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Thank you for your responses everyone. If/when we install valves, we likely will go with MES's Stainless Steel No Restriction valves found here http://www.mapleexperts.com/PricelistValve.html. Pretty cheap and they are a single piece so you don't worry about leaks as much. I know a lot of people won't use plastic because the handles break, but maybe there are more hardy ones out there. I like the idea of a no restriction valve that is made of SS so that there are no little pockets for freezes and also you maximize your CFM flow, and they won't pull apart as easy. For those of you with vac. monitoring system, or considering installing one, do you/ would you have valves as well as the monitoring system? The big advantage to having valves with the monitoring system would be the ability to shut down a main that has a huge leak on it. Not sure what other advantages there would be. I guess if the system ever failed it would nice to be able to have ball valves as backup.

[pipeline]

not a bad idea to install ball valves to help isolate problems . i would put gauges on outer ends of mains so you know true vac on whole system also we found 2 plastic valves leaking around stem to handle

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

We have ball valves at the end of all mainlines. I thought pretty much everyone did that. We run our cleaning solution down the mainlines while pulling taps, makes it easy to do that. I can see where one after the branch would be beneficial to shut off the vacuum and determine how bad the leaks are. I like the idea of those SS fittings. Some of our plastic ones have been gnawed on by bears pretty bad and need to be replaced. Working on "relocating" the bear this year ;)

[WestfordSugarworks]

I think what we are going to do is hold out on valves for this season and then put in a vac. monitoring system for the 2018 season. We don't have much of a squirrel problem so we are hoping that the 2 year old tubing will still be pretty tight for this next season. We'll see how it goes.

[maple flats]

On my mains, I have gauges at both ends, just past the ball valve and also after the last lateral. I haven't put any after my last tap.

[sapman]

This year valves helped me with tapping. I wasn't able to get done before sapflow, so I would isolate all mains not tapped, then turn them on one at a time when finished.

[doocat]

We have valves on all mains. First and foremost for the same reason as Tim. We can start up the vacuum without all mains tapped. Also if we get big leak we can shut off the main for repair and not affect the rest of the system. We use plastic and had no problems them leaking.

Craig

[WestfordSugarworks]

Doocat and Sapman, those are good reasons and very important to note. We attach all our drops to the Ts after we pull spouts but i'm sure many of them will leak if we tried to turn the pump on.

[VT_K9]

Maybe I am over thinking a few things, but when we established vacuum in our bush two years ago we discussed valves to isolate areas to do a more efficient leak check daily as opposed to walking the woods several times. We have a 9 acre area with about 330 taps now. I plan on going up to about 400-450 in this area when we are finished (we have another 60 acres available to tap, but are comfortable with what we have now).

We set up the mainlines without many valves and gauges at this point, but now have the supplies to do it at every junction (Y). When I looked at the fittings available I noticed a variation in thickness of the side walls. I also noticed some with the first "barb" chamfered soo much it creates a pocket after being installed. My goal is to eliminate vacuum loss and minimize turbulence in the lines. We chose to go with the maple related SS barbed male adapters on the input (up hill) side of the valve/gauge system. Then we can use the lesser expensive SS or LF Brass on the out put side. The advantage to the SS maple related barbed units is the barbs are very sharp and seem like they can handle a lot of tension and the transition from pipe to fitting seems to be efficient.

In reading this post I like the idea of the saddle with a gauge since the saddle would not often (or normally) interfere with the flow. That still leaves you with the need for a valve to isolate the section. I would say that since we intall Y fittings are our junctions we already have a barbed fitting and modify the flow I would keep the valve in this area.

Mike

[GeneralStark]

This year valves helped me with tapping. I wasn't able to get done before sapflow, so I would isolate all mains not tapped, then turn them on one at a time when finished.

This has been my primary reason for using valves on some of my lateral mainlines. I actually don't use valves and gauges in the woods for leak checking but I can see why one might do that, especially with a larger system.

[jakeleveto]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I couldn’t find any info elsewhere and this is a good starting point.

We use ball valves and gauges at the start of each mainline and it is invaluable in finding leaks on 110 miles of main/lateral lines. This season we have CV spouts for about half the trees, where the drops are 2-3 years old, but regular new plastic spouts on everything else. My fear is that if there is a big leak (hanging drop, broken 5/16 tee) closing the ball valve will back flow sap into the trees, lowering tap hole life. Any thoughts on this? Will there already be enough backflow from other sources to make this not matter, or are we unnessisarily putting ourselves at a disadvantage? Once the vacuum is started in a few weeks it will stay on until it’s over, but there are several ways sap can still get back into the trees. Next year we’ll have all CV spouts but it’s too late to change this season. Thanks for any input.

[unc23win]

I’m not sure if I understand your question but having valves and gauges helps find leaks faster by isolating them. When doing so you only close a valve long enough to see if the gauge moves. If when closed the gauge goes up then the line associated with that gauge has a leak open the valve and go look for the leak. Back flow will only occur while the valve is closed.

I’m a firm believer in this set up we can isolate each line in a matter of minutes and be searching the right area quickly. The more leaks you find the easier the next one is to find because of the increased vacuum.

[jakeleveto]

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, rushing to finish post on my phone before my flight left and I lost service. The valves and gauges are amazing at isolating leaks, that’s known, but my issue is with what happens when the ball is closed and a leak is detected. If there’s a big enough leak somewhere on the line then as soon as the valve is closed you’ll immediately see sap in the laterals turn around and go backwards as the vacuum level drops in that isolated main line. It won’t take more than a second and that sap has just passed a contaminated spout and returned into the tree tap hole, bacteria and all, making that tap dry up sooner. I guess I’m asking if this is something to worry about and if another method is needed to isolate leaks (such as wireless gauges at the end of every mainline, available from several companies now)

[n8hutch]

Check valve spouts should take care of your concern.

[VT_K9]

Without CV spouts I think the best choice is to minimize the time the valves are closed. The vacuum won't go away until the leak allows enough air into the system or the trees provide sap or off gas. I think when you make the repair you will still potentially create a set of circumstances which allows a level of back flow...so the answer would be a CV spout.

Mike

[eagle lake sugar]

A line monitoring system such as Smartrek would be ideal, but until I could budget that, ball valves and inexpensive vacuum gauges do a pretty good job of isolating leaks.

[Walling's Maple Syrup]

Without CV spouts I think the best choice is to minimize the time the valves are closed. The vacuum won't go away until the leak allows enough air into the system or the trees provide sap or off gas. I think when you make the repair you will still potentially create a set of circumstances which allows a level of back flow...so the answer would be a CV spout.

Mike
I think what you might be referring to is when making a repair, the line is cut creating backflow? I carry two pairs of needle nosed vice grips in my fix bag and pinch off both sides of the leak before making repair. This will prevent backflow from a cut line. Just make sure to slide a couple pieces of 5/16" tubing over the jaws to keep from damaging tubing when you clamp it.
Neil