tubing system revamp

[Rodger]

At the moment we have a total of 175 taps and looking to increase to 300 for the upcoming season. That would max us out on trees and tap on our property. the drop in elevation from the last tap to the tank is about 100 ft.
The past couple years we have run 3/16 tubing from tap to tank with a shurflo pump. Some taps added along the way during the season. I feel we have overloaded the lines coming down from the top. There are about 125 taps on two 3/16 coming down through.
Looking to upgrade to a 1/2 main line and put the laterals into that and add more laterals to along with more taps. Looking to have a guzzler at the tank to help pull the sap along.
What are some thoughts or ideas to increase flow.

Thanks

[Pdiamond]

What I have read is 25 to 30 taps on 3/16 tubing with good slope. I would check the just published manual from UVM I believe it's in there. The rest of what you want to do sounds good.

[DRoseum]

Yep those are pretty good numbers for taps/line on 3/16 with adequate slope. Depending on your layout and what you want to spend, why not run 3/16th all the way down and get the benefit of natural vacuum? You might still be able to use the shurflo setup with that to maximize vacuum. I think I have seen some people on here with 200+ taps on a single 4008/4048 shurflo without issues. Those pumps are 3 gpm (180 gph) open flow, so if every tree was running at 0.6 gallon/hr (or 4.8 gallons in an 8 hr period), in theory you could have ~300 taps on a single shurflo 4008 pump. Everyone's trees are different, but I have never see over 3 gallons per tap in a 24 hr period on my 3/16 lines which all have excellent drop, ~15 to 25 taps each, and are leak free.

[DrTimPerkins]

https://mapleresearch.org/pub/mn1214tubing-2/

https://mapleresearch.org/pub/slope2018-2/

https://mapleresearch.org/pub/m1017asktubingsize/

And as previously mentioned, the section on 3/16" tubing systems in Chapter 6 of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual, Third Edition.

[VT_K9]

I would recommend going a little larger on your mainline. I have never used 3/16" and we have vac here so I am sticking with 5/16" and I am of the mindset that I prefer 5/16" sap lines. Our first step toward vac from gravity was putting a guzzler at the end of our gravity lines (we added it about week 2 of that season). Fair improvement was noticed in sap quantity. Re-ran some lines and tapped using the vacuum theory and saw a vast improvement the next year. Went to regular vacuum and found a little more gain.

On the mainline....We started with some 1/2" mainlines and had a couple 3/4" lines and that is what we added the guzzle to. The next year we eliminated the 1/2" lines and used a 1" mainline feeding into a short run of 1 1/4" to enter the guzzler. We started to get more serious and I found this awesome website (www.mapletrader.com) where I have learned a lot (and still continue to do so). We changed to a couple 1" mainlines with everything being stepped up to 3/4". Two things happened....saddles...never had a spare for the size line we were working on and sag. We changed a lot of lines over to 1" to keep the same sized saddles on hand. We also noticed sap in 1" line was less affected by short overnight freezes because minor sags do not allow a full pipe icicle. I recommend 1" line for mainlines to address sag and provide volume minimizing ice impact the morning after a freeze (we don't see good sun until 1000 in our bush). Take a look at smaller mainlines and you will notice slight sags and any point where the top of the pipe drops below the bottom will result in a slug of ice reducing transfer of vac and flow of sap when the trees thaw and your line is frozen.

Mike