How Many taps for different size mainlines?

[Alex Davies]

How many taps can you put on 3/4", 1", 1 1/4" ?

Only got 18 " vacuum with an old dairy pump... Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

Thanks

[spud]

On 3/4 inch mainline I would not want to go over 50-75 taps. On 1 inch I do 100-150. On 1 1/4 I would do 200-250. Many people do much more then that on their mainlines but it will hurt overall production per tap.

Spud

[blissville maples]

Spud, what do you use on a 1200 tap sugarbush?

Personally I oversize everything. Id say 3/4 no more than 75-100....1 inch less than 300. 1 1/4 i put 1000 thru without issue. But bigger is certainly better

[tcross]

For what it's worth... i have two, 1" main lines. one is 600' and has 150 taps on it. the other is 800-850' and has 100 taps on it. the 800 ' line gets 26-27" of vacuum at the end and the 600' mainline gets 28.5"-29" at the end. that is all if I'm keeping on top of the leaks. the lines are ran by a BB4 pump which I believe gives around 29 cfms?

[whity]

We run shurflo pumps. Would the main size effect our vacuum the same way? We have 1 grove with about 125 taps on 1/2" main.

[spud]

Spud, what do you use on a 1200 tap sugarbush?

Personally I oversize everything. Id say 3/4 no more than 75-100....1 inch less than 300. 1 1/4 i put 1000 thru without issue. But bigger is certainly better

I have 8500-9000 taps that are split almost in half. I run two vacuum pumps going to two different locations. I have 5000 taps coming into my sugarhouse and that is on a 10HP Kinney two stage pump. I then have 3500+ running to a pump house and that has a new Air-Tech 5HP. A section of my property is going to be sold in 2020 and then I will have 5000 +/- taps all running into my sugar house. And another 1700 taps running to a new pump house 600 feet below my sugar house. I am going to buy another 5HP Air-Tech for the 5000 and a 1 1/2HP Air-Tech for the 1700 taps. I will keep the 10HP pump as a spare just in case one of the other pumps breaks down.

Spud

[mol1jb]

Another thing to consider is main line slope. Higher slope mains drain faster and thus can support a higher tap count.