cleaning lateral lines only

[wkies]

It's that time of year again in SW Connectciut - Heading out to clean the lines tomorrow. I have set up a few lateral lines w/ 5/16 tubing that drain staight into colloection buckets - no mainline. I would like to leave them up year around. I have a tanaka pump that I use for my mainline. My question to the forum is: How can I attach my pump to the 5/16 tubing to clean it? Is a fitting I can rig up? All ideas welcome.

[mountainvan]

You should have an adaptor for the pump so you can use garden hose discharge, if not go from 1" to 1/2 with a reducer. Put a 1/2" straight adaptor< grey ones at any hardware store> on the hose, you have to cut the hose, or 1/2" tubing. 5/16 tubing will fit tight inside the 1/2" adaptor. Now you can flush your tubing. I've used this set-up for years. I also use a Ortho dial sprayer for bleach. Garden hose goes on one end 1/2" adaptor on other. Flush tubing with bleach on lowest setting, let sit for a couple minutes, then turn the dial to water and rinse well. I use a hose clamp to keep the trigger up. Hope this makes sense. Van

[maple flats]

I have a 1" pump for sap transfer and use it to clean lines. I built a fitting with cam lock in and out, 1", a 1/4" air line in the side and check valve on the air. I then hook this up to my mainline , each of which have a male cam lock end to hook to. I run the pump pushing my peroxide solution thru with the compressor adding air for turbulance. On some lines I have only 5/16 tubing into a barrel, for these I have a male cam lock x 1"ips reduced to 1/2" ips and into this I screwed a 4 way sap ladder fitting. On 3 of the 4 I put caps and clamped them on leaving 1 to hook to the 5/16 line and clean. When done I cut the pipe off, loose about an inch and I am ready for the next. I do not rinse since peroxide breaks down quickly into water and oxygen, but i do drain it, however a little is often left and it causes no harm. When I attach this fitting to my 5/16 line I actually use the 2 hand tool for tubing assembly and to cut it off I use my knife, slit the tube and cut off the slit part. This never leaves me short since the tubing streaches and besides i make them a few inches long to start and when putting them into the collection barrels I drill a hole just big enough to fit the tubing thru but it is snug and several inches insert into the barrel. (My barrels for this are all food grade plastic, some 55 gal and some 1/2 of the 55 gal barrel which stand up and I have wooden covers to keep out bugs and other critters.)

[John Burton]

I have a short whip of garden hose that is bushed with various fittings to get to alincoln 1/4 inch air hose adaptorwhich will slip fit into the 5/16 tubing i secure this with a micro size hose clamp and run the pump on a slow setting. i will usually flush the lines(pull the spout and plug it into the t let sit for one or two days then go bak and let cleaning solution out by unplugging the taps let it air dry for a few days then reconnect the taps and tees Iknow that this is not practical for someone with alot of taps like van as it means 3 trips out to get it all done but with only a couple hundred its not that bad and gives me some extra bush time to size up any problems that i may have missed