Vacuum and a slight rise in altitude.

[foxtail]

I am getting tired of hauling buckets. Now that I make decent money, I can afford to invest in some better equipment. Do you think that it will make a difference with a vacuum system if about 1/2 of the trees I have tapped are around 4-6 feet lower than the top of the tank? This would be not including the releaser height. The ground is very uneven as it is river bank.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Your not giving us much info so Ill take a stab at it. When you say the TREES do you mean the entire tree or the ground that the tree is on? What type of releaser did you get? Have you thought of using a sap lifter or ladders? I have trees that are 15' lower than my releaser. You will find thread after thread about how to overcome the reverse grade.

I have the same situation so I start tapping at 7 ' and run down hill from there. You could also look into an electric releaser to get down as low as possible.

[Cedar Eater]

Since you are on buckets, I'm going to guess that you don't have more than 200 taps. Have you considered using cheap mechanical vacuum setups? One or two Shurflo pumps might be enough and they can easily pump uphill enough to get into your tank. If you tell us more about your situation, we can make better guesses about what might work best for you.

[foxtail]

My ground is high bank river flood plain. It has ancient grooves cut into it. The trees, some of which are 4 feet in diameter or larger grow both in these grooves and on the slightly higher ground. The difference in height is no more than 6 feet at any point. I would have my tank and collecting equipment on the highest area which happens to be close to dead center of the area. I only am running bags at this time, but would like to upgrade to a vacuum system to pull not only more sap, but to allow me to avoid the horrible walk back and forth to collection stations where I have to pump the collected sap to a central point to be pumped to the truck which is about 15 feet higher than the collection point. The pump I use has no problem pushing the sap to the tank on the truck.

I do not have the vacuum equipment yet and the reason for seeking this guidance from you all is to figure out if the vacuum would pull the sap from the lower areas to the collection point. The holding tank would be a 275 square. I would pump from there to the truck. I think that I would require a gas powered vacuum pump, a mechanical releaser and a lot of line. I am good at the primitive methods, but need a bit of mentoring on the more modern methods.

[Cedar Eater]

My ground is high bank river flood plain. It has ancient grooves cut into it. The trees, some of which are 4 feet in diameter or larger grow both in these grooves and on the slightly higher ground. The difference in height is no more than 6 feet at any point. I would have my tank and collecting equipment on the highest area which happens to be close to dead center of the area. I only am running bags at this time, but would like to upgrade to a vacuum system to pull not only more sap, but to allow me to avoid the horrible walk back and forth to collection stations where I have to pump the collected sap to a central point to be pumped to the truck which is about 15 feet higher than the collection point. The pump I use has no problem pushing the sap to the tank on the truck.

I do not have the vacuum equipment yet and the reason for seeking this guidance from you all is to figure out if the vacuum would pull the sap from the lower areas to the collection point. The holding tank would be a 275 square. I would pump from there to the truck. I think that I would require a gas powered vacuum pump, a mechanical releaser and a lot of line. I am good at the primitive methods, but need a bit of mentoring on the more modern methods.

And again, we don't have a tap count, acreage, maximum tubing run length, etc.. The right system for 100 taps on five acres would be vastly different than the right approach for 1000 taps on 80 acres. A 12VDC Shurflo diaphragm pump plumbed inside a rubbermaid tote can be run 24/7 by a pair of deep cycle batteries (one in service and one charging). I've read of guys using one of those and sucking in excess of 200 taps with 3/16" tubing runs of 25 taps per line as long as 1000'. No mainlines, no releasers, no sap ladders or lifters, no gas powered equipment, and no air powered equipment. You won't get the maximum sap per tap with that, but you will get much more than you've gotten from buckets. But without knowing distances and quantities, it could only be a guess as to what you need.

[foxtail]

OK, I gottcha now.

I am running around 130 taps on what I believe is 2-3 acres. I would have to guess that I would have to run 2000 feet of mainline to cover it. I imagine that it would take a lot of small line to make the runs.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Then I would run everything into a mainline running down the river bed area to on collection point. Then I would go with sap ladders to get it up to a level that it runs at a slight grade to your collection tank and releaser. Or you can complicate it.

[foxtail]

And again, we don't have a tap count, acreage, maximum tubing run length, etc.. The right system for 100 taps on five acres would be vastly different than the right approach for 1000 taps on 80 acres. A 12VDC Shurflo diaphragm pump plumbed inside a rubbermaid tote can be run 24/7 by a pair of deep cycle batteries (one in service and one charging). I've read of guys using one of those and sucking in excess of 200 taps with 3/16" tubing runs of 25 taps per line as long as 1000'. No mainlines, no releasers, no sap ladders or lifters, no gas powered equipment, and no air powered equipment. You won't get the maximum sap per tap with that, but you will get much more than you've gotten from buckets. But without knowing distances and quantities, it could only be a guess as to what you need.

Are you Spruce Creek Farm onYou Tube? That is what I found a video of there.

[foxtail]

Than you guys for helping. I realize that it is probably frustrating to mentor someone who has never touched the equipment yet.

[Cedar Eater]

OK, I gottcha now.

I am running around 130 taps on what I believe is 2-3 acres. I would have to guess that I would have to run 2000 feet of mainline to cover it. I imagine that it would take a lot of small line to make the runs.

So I'm getting the impression that the parcel must be very long and narrow. You can use vacuum to move sap uphill through several methods, but for only 130 taps and assuming that it's roughly the same count on either side of your cental collection location, there's a method mentioned by Maple Flats that I think might be best for you. If you can slope the mainlines downhill to your collection point, you can use vacuum to pull sap up to the mainline by using 3/16" laterals. Otherise, I would go entirely with 3/16" tubing except for the droptubes, which would be 5/16". The downside of 3/16" tubing on level ground and with slight uphills is the friction that has to be overcome, but there are losses with sap ladders and sap lifters also.

I suggest that you read these recent threads:

https://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?32724-3-16-Newbie-Questions
https://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?32663-Tapping-and-Tubing-in-a-Swamp

[Cedar Eater]

Are you Spruce Creek Farm onYou Tube? That is what I found a video of there.

No, that's not me, but I have seen that video. It's a good example.

[foxtail]

You two have helped a lot. I have a start point and new ideas as to where to research and where to begin. I think I will start to collect the equipment for the small lines and forget the main lines. Maybe I will have to buy a new ladder and do like the video I mentioned. I don't think I will ever have to go very far up. Plus, the higher I go, the less chance of the idiot on the sled blowing through my lines.

[Cedar Eater]

Here's a youtube of some of the experimental things I've done with 3/16" tubing and a really cheap diaphragm pump on difficult terrain. It's not quite a river bank situation, but it is a hill next to a cedar swamp. It's only one of my runs, but it's been working for me this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pBNPdkTYU&t=21s

[Cedar Eater]

This is another thread that may be interesting. Maple Flats explains his setups a little better.

https://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?32759-Flat-woods-small-scale-tubbing