Plumbing a tank

[tbear]

Hi Everyone,
I'm going to plumb in a 150 gallon poly tank, outside the shack. I want to move sap from the 150 gallon tank to a 15 gallon tank that feeds the evaporator. Should I use copper, pvc, or maybe something else? Thanks, Ted

[mol1jb]

Any food grade pipe will work fine. For larger pipe I usually use pvc. Smaller pipe I usually use a flexible pipe like mainline or similar just make sure it is rated for potable water.

[maple flats]

As said, most any potable water hose. Most I think use something like Spiroflex, but many use blue mainline. When you run the line, consider using a good quality heat tape and foam insulation. I have 1.5" line from a manifold that connects 3 tanks and I used 2" pipe insulation with contractor grade heat tape in it. I only plug it in if I get a frozen line and some years I never need to plug it in, like this past season. A good grade heat tape will thaw a frozen line 1.5" diameter in about 30-45 minutes. The good grade tapes are 7 watts per foot, the big box store tapes are 2 or 3 watts per foot. The good ones will last far longer than the cheap ones. When you need it, you want to be able to depend on it. If you have a dependable way to completely drain the line, and empty it every night, you might need no heat tape, except I've heard of a feed line freezing during use, that can be a huge issue.

[SeanD]

I'm one of the "froze during use" people. Really crazy. 1" line feeding a 125 gph RO. Temp plummeted and froze so quickly and clearly I couldn't even tell what was wrong. I kept looking at the line and ruled out the possibility I was out of sap. Then I moved the line and it was solid as rock. Like I said - really crazy.

That said, I'm a big fan of flexible hose with quick connects. That way I can open the system and rinse it out every night. The line that goes from the head tank to the float box disconnects, gets pointed down into a 5 gal bucket then I disconnect it from the bottom of the head tank and hose water through to clean it out. I also like being able to see there isn't any crud in the lines.

Lastly, flexible hose allows for new configurations. I'm always reinventing the wheel and it's good to have the (no pun intended) flexibility.

Sean