Wet/dry and sap ladder

[Maplewalnut]

Has anyone had any luck bypassing a star sap ladder with say a 1 inch jumper from wet line to wet line? Seems you could leapfrog the existing ladder with a dry line connector but would that then become your new ladder if it is further ‘upstream’ than your star ladder? Tired of waiting for frozen ladders to thaw before vacuum gets to all taps

Thanks
Mike

[TapTapTap]

I'm not really following your question. But I will say that your 5/16 lines on the sap ladder should thaw out quickly. Whereas mainline that has trapped sap at the bottom of the ladder will take longer, perhaps a lot longer.

Ken

[Maplewalnut]

I'm not really following your question. But I will say that your 5/16 lines on the sap ladder should thaw out quickly. Whereas mainline that has trapped sap at the bottom of the ladder will take longer, perhaps a lot longer.

Ken

Yea hard to describe. Ladder is star design with 5/16 tune. Problem is it seems to take a lot longer than other to thaw. All taps that this ladder raises sap from doesnt get any vacuum for hours until it thaws. My thought is to jumper the top mainline to the bottom with 1 inch tube bypassing the ladder and get vacuum to the taps while the 5/16 ladder thaws. Similar to a whip on a wet/dry system. I just dont know if the 1 inch tube will fill full of sap instead of the star 5/16 fittings since it will be upstream of the existing ladder

[VT_K9]

There are a couple challenges. When you have a minor leak in 5/16" you can have the freeze start sooner and last longer as it would fill the pipe and freeze solid.

We also have a mainline running to a ladder using a down turned six port star and 5/16" tubing to lift the sap. I have no doubt the star area and 5/16" tubing freezes hard. I have thought about changing to a 3 port start and putting 2 into the lines. I would think I would put about 18-24" between them that way if the lower 3 port star cannot handle the taps the second one will assist if the sap backs up to it and the second one will take over if the lower one is frozen.

The mainline above the ladder has approximately 24 taps. Prior to this year we ran 3/4" black poly with saddles. We had multiple leaks on the saddles and the line is about 9 years old. We replaced he line with 1" CDL blue and will re-attach the saplines with spin seals to fix the leaks. To save time since we are running behind we kept about 12" of the 3/4" black with the star by using a reducing coupling.

I find when the vacuum hits 10" the sap ladder starts running except on cold mornings. If I were moving sap from more than 24 taps I would seriously consider adding the second star.

Mike

[murferd]

When we got over 100 taps on the star ladder line it wasn't working good enough for me. Someone on here was talking about vertical pipes. We switched to that one year, worked better, then "Tim" came out in me & wanted "more power" so added the dry line loop which does seem to help. Not sure if its when froze. but certainly when the sap gets running good. Vacuum does get stopped at bottom "waiting" for sap to come up tubes.

[Maplewalnut]

When we got over 100 taps on the star ladder line it wasn't working good enough for me. Someone on here was talking about vertical pipes. We switched to that one year, worked better, then "Tim" came out in me & wanted "more power" so added the dry line loop which does seem to help. Not sure if its when froze. but certainly when the sap gets running good. Vacuum does get stopped at bottom "waiting" for sap to come up tubes.

Thanks Murray
How far upstream did you connect your dry line to bottom mainline? Was it a couple feet or more from your ladder?

[Amber Gold]

I have two spider lifts. One with about 40 taps and the other about 70.

I agree that the spider type ladder should thaw earlier in the morning because the lines will thaw out sooner. My thought is about the same time as the laterals lines thaw out, and before the mainlines...just a thought. I find that I have lifts in colder parts of my woods...they're at the low point, and it's noticeably colder in these locations.

I'm not sure how you quantify how well one style is working over the other...maybe if using maple mainline and you can see the sap flowing through it?? My mainline is all black. Is there a vacuum difference at the end of the mainline? It'd be cool to have a lift set up with both styles and be able to turn each of them off and see if there's a difference.

Maybe add the mainline lift as well and run them both?? Is it bad to have too much lift capacity?

[murferd]

Thanks Murray
How far upstream did you connect your dry line to bottom mainline? Was it a couple feet or more from your ladder?

I think it's roughly 3 to 4 feet