Vacuum "boosters"

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Does anyone use vacuum "boosters" anymore? I'm pondering a three line system, wet, wet, dry. My thought is to be able to add another conductor system off in another direction from the existing system without over loading the wet/dry system existing. If I add a larger dry line to the top of a booster into my releaser it should increase the cfm by the capacity of that line leaving the original wet/dry system to act on wet lines?
To clarify, there are no other lines coming into the conductor below the proposed booster location.
Thanks in advance. :)

[Brian]

If the conductor system is big enough for your taps than you should be able to just tee in to it with another conductor heading another direction. If the first conductor lines are not big enogh some run another conductor system right with the first system.This helps deliver better vacuum and helps find the leaks better because your vacuum won't drope off so far. If you tee in to the original system make sure you use ball valves in both directions with a vacuum gauge for finding leaks.

[collinsmapleman2012]

it'll work if you have slope to keep the booster drained. i work with very little slope so i trashed a booster in a year since they dont drain very easily. i have teed a 1" wet dryinto a 11/4" dry/1" wet line, seems to work really well. i mostly do it because of the slope issues. my larger woods i'll be reworking in a couple years and i plan to have a couple side 1" over 1" systems teeing into the larger 2" over 1.5 when i build it, and have the mains go up the slope i do have to work with from there.

[ennismaple]

We were contemplating boosters a while back but have gone to the 'whip' style of wet/dry connection. Whips have less to go wrong and simpler to install.

[DrTimPerkins]

Back when we were using PVC style manifolds, we found that 1-2 (out of 10) would break each year. The whip manifold is a far cheaper, simpler, and superior system. We've never used what I'd call "boosters" in our system, but I imagine there might be some applications where they would be useful, but I'd avoid them if I could.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Thanks for the info friends!

[GeneralStark]

People are definitely still using boosters. They have disadvantages as others have mentioned but they do seem to be advantageous when you have many mainlines converging in one location. Doing "whips" when you have 20 mainlines converging can be challenging. The following photos are from a friend's 45 k tap operation and they use both whips and boosters, but the boosters are used at major junctions.

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[Amber Gold]

I use boosters as Hogback said. I have one spot where 3 mainlines come in at the same spot. Far few fittings using a single booster than 3 separate whips. I use whips elsewhere in my system.

I've had my booster for say 6 years, and it still works fine.