Sap guzzler with long mainline

[Minnesota Tapper]

Installing a new section of woods with 1" mainline. Trees are spread out quite a bit requiring alot of 1" main with 3/4" branches. To get 300 taps online id have to use 1000 feet of 1" mainline plus 1500 feet of 3/4" for branching off.(2500 total feet of main.)

I could get an additional 100 taps and be at 400 total taps, but then id have to add another 500 feet of 3/4" to get that far up into the woods.(3000 total feet of main)

How well would a sap guzzler work with these long lengths of mainline? (Assuming a tight system of course.) Approximately how long would it take for the guzzler to build vacuum in the lines on start up? High vac pump isn't an option here.

[MapleCamp]

Not sure this helps but I have a double disk guzzler on about half of what you are talking about and it comes under vac 23-26 inches in less than a minute

[Minnesota Tapper]

MapleCamp thats good to know. If i did the math right 1000feet of 1" pipe is 6 cu.ft. 2000 feet of 3/4" is 6.2 cu.ft. For a total of 12.2 cu ft of air to evacuate before getting vacuum. A single guzzler moves roughly 1 cu.ft. per minute so a little over 10 minutes with a tight system. I can definitely live with that. Hopefully my math is right 😆

[VT_K9]

Our first step into "vacuum" was a single Guzzler. We had over 2000' of 1" and 3/4" mainline and serviced about 375 taps. We constantly saw 24-25" of vacuum. It took awhile to build the vacuum. We wanted to expand to more mainline and add a couple ladders so we went to a vacuum pump. I think the guzzler is a lot like an RO is to processing sap...it is a simple and easy method to expand. Speaking of ROs if you don't have one you will truly see the benefit once you add a guzzler...we did.

Mike

[DrTimPerkins]

How well would a sap guzzler work with these long lengths of mainline? (Assuming a tight system of course.) Approximately how long would it take for the guzzler to build vacuum in the lines on start up?...

Assuming the system is kept VERY tight, you can get decent vacuum even with long mainlines. However even a small leak will drop the vacuum quickly due to the low CFM movement of these pumps. Diaphragm pumps are designed to move fluid, not air. So while they will move air to generate vacuum, you can't expect them to work as well as a pump designed to move air. In addition, during high flow periods when it is warm, your vacuum will drop off quite a bit due to the higher release of tree gases. As you stated...building vacuum in a long section of mainline can take a bit of time.

[NhShaun]

Installing a new section of woods with 1" mainline. Trees are spread out quite a bit requiring alot of 1" main with 3/4" branches. To get 300 taps online id have to use 1000 feet of 1" mainline plus 1500 feet of 3/4" for branching off.(2500 total feet of main.)


Do you have any updates on the new set up you mentioned in this thread from last year? Curious what pump and set up you ended up going with.