Tubing on the ground

[Rozzy]

This is my first year tapping at my new place and one thing I have found is that nearly all of my trees are red maples. This year I have 30 taps and my reds have been very sporadic. Everyone tells me reds run good on vacuum so I'm thinking of trying tubing with a small Shurflo system next year. The problem is that I'm on a 3/4 acre lot in a subdivision so all tubing would need to be removed seasonally and I'm worried about the astetics of tubing during the season.My question is, could tubing be laid on the ground when using vacuum with an overall gradual slop toward the collection point? There would be no real up hill runs, but maybe dips and such.

Here is my layout. I'm thinking of running 3 runs of 3/16" tubing, the first about 200' with 14 taps, the second about 275' with 9 taps and the last around 60' with 7 taps. The land drops about 10' from the road, to the collection point so either way I think I would need the help of a vacuum. The red dots are all my taps, the green lines are my proposed lines, the small yellow square is my sugar shack(i will need to pump up from my collection point, and the large yellow area is my neighbors land that I have permission to tap and may provide around 12-15 more taps. Thanks for any and all advice.

15768

[Cedar Eater]

I've seen that one of the manufacturers has green tubing, which might help with the esthetics, but I'm not sure if they make that in 3/16". I think you could get away with running 3/16" on the ground, but it might be a problem getting a good flow when there is snow keeping it cold after a night in the 20s. I try to keep mine off the snow for that reason.

[littleTapper]

Just run it like it's meant to be run. It'll spark more conversations with your neighbors and help you meet more people - some might want to buy some syrup :)

[psparr]

You'd have bad problems with frozen lines. With elevated lines, the sun warms them up and thaws them out. On the ground especially covered with snow would be a problem.