5/16 natural vacuume help

[lords sugaring]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to put up a few lines of 5/16 tubing this weekend. Few questions off the top of my head, do you guys secure the line to near by trees ? Do y connections work for connecting two lines into one without problems or do T's work better ? Is there a such thing as not enough taps per line for vacuum ? Should I run the line and then splice into it or piece it together as I go ? I know 3/16 is better for natural vacuum but I have on hand 500' of 5/16, 100 taps, 100 T's, few Y's and a few end hooks and a two handed tool.

Thanks for the help

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

You will not get any natural vacuum with 5/16" tubing. If you are setting up for future mechanical vacuum limit the lines to 8-10 taps per lateral and a length of 150' per lateral. Less taps is ok too. Don't use y's or tees in this case, add a saddle.
If not planning on vacuum you can use a y or a tee but limit it as much as possible. Maybe just to grab another tree or two instead of running a lateral. I'm in favor of adding more saddles as opposed to y's and tees. I still try to keep it around 10 taps per lateral without vacuum.

[mol1jb]

It can but not well performing.

[Bucket Head]

Natural vacuum on 5/16 is possible, but it will be low and it won't be sustained. I can achieve 7-8 inches on a single line of about 300 ft with 40 taps on it with a pretty steep vertical drop. But it has to be a good sap running day- meaning the line needs to be full of sap to create the downward "pull" that creates the vacuum. And it takes a lot more sap to fill 5/16 than 3/16 tubing. There would be 0-2 on the "less active" days.

Steve