Burying mainline

[tonka]

For those of you who have buried your mainline from the woods to your sugar shack or to a tank/pump, dose the line have to be at a slope?

[Balrog006]

Are you on gravity or vacuum?

[tonka]

It would be under vacuum.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

It should be sloped a minimum of 1% but 2% is better.

[TapTapTap]

My advice is to start with a survey of you're proposed alignment and draw a profile to see what slope you can achieve and how deep that will drive you. I agree without ultimate treehugger about the 1 or 2 percent minimum but that is really hard to achieve with coiled tubing. I think you'll need to wire it with high tensile, just like above ground and bury it wire and all.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Quick tip. I use come alongs or ratchet straps at either end to pull tension while burying.

[TapTapTap]

I've got a couple of short runs that will be buried later in the spring so I'm also interested in other peoples experience.

Another question I have is how to best transition from below to above ground. At a shallow slope it wouldn't take very much ground heave to raise the tubing up and inch or two at the outlet (sure to cause a sag and a frozen line). I'm thinking the answer could include one or more of the following:

- Increase tubing slope at the outlet
- Replace the subgrade at the outlet with about 12" of crushed stone
- Create a near vertical outlet structure (like a culvert headwall, perhaps made out of field stone)

Ideally, you'd stay underground and discharge into a buried structure with an electric releaser.

Ken

[tonka]

Looking closer at some topo maps it seems as the idea of burying my line is a no go. 1800 ft of line and only a 10 to mybe 15 ft of drop at most. What if I would run 2 releasers with a wet/dry line setup buried? 1 releaser in the woods where the line enters the ground and the second at the pump house, or will I still need to have atleast 1% grade? Or just have 1 electric releaser with an internal pump to pump the sap to the pump house?

The reason for wanting to bury lines is to eliminate the need for building a road to the woods where I have trees tapped and the pump house will be closer to electricity (100ft away) so I can get away from gas power and to run high vac with most of the bells and whistles. Last year i was unable to collect sap from this woods because the ground was too wet. Figured I missed out on 350 gallons of syrup.

[wiam]

My releaser is 1600’ from my power/sugarhouse. For close to 20 years I have had a buried vac 1-1/4” line and a 1” pump line. With a manual releaser. This season I went to an electric releaser in the woods pumping back to sugarhouse. I used this pump in my releaser. https://www.supremewatersales.com/10sq05-160-96160140.html ( click for the real price) plowed in 1600’ of 10-2 unb. It is working great. The pump has a slow start feature so no big start draw. Only pulls 3.8 amps running. This is on 900 taps.

[tonka]

Wiam, dose your 1" pump line have any slope to it? I would think a electric releaser with a pump already in it would achieve the same as your setup.

[wiam]

Pump and outlet are about the same elevation. Probably goes up and back down about 25’. And yes that would work but would have needed much bigger wire. This pump with slow start I could get away with 10 gauge.

[tonka]

How did you bury your lines?

[wiam]

I used my small excavator. 8500 pounds. Lines are at least 4 down.