Coming to a conclusion

[adk1]

That if Ido get into this, whoch I am definatly going to at some point, that with the layout of my property and the location of my future sugarhouse (converting an old shed that is located behind my garage) that I will need to get into the tubing collection moreso than the buckets. I say this because basically I ahve a pretty steep hill directly behind my house where I will be collecting from.
How many different ways are there to do this? If i wanted to use buckets, I could dump the buckets into a collection tank that would then feed down into another tank located on the side of my sugarhouse, that wuold in turn gravity feed into my evaporator.
Or do Ijsut simply tap the trees with the tubing spiles and be down with it?

[peacemaker]

ok answer this how many taps will u do ...how much time will u have to gather each day and on a good run day twice ... whats the total taps u can have on the hill and here is my 2 cents if u have buckets and u have the time put in your mainline as u say and a dump station or depending on how thick the trees are 2 or 3 dump stations but set your main as to be perm.. then u can ad your laterals when u know you really want to do this even if your buckets are sitting on the ground with drops coming down into a bucket this way u havent even wasted the money on taps and buckets when uplan on tubing

[brookledge]

Another issue with buckets other than alot of labor is lost sap. If you have a steep slope you will lose alot of sap over the course of a year by slipping on ice etc. So if you are lucky enough to have the grade then by all means put in tubing. I know if you do it yourself you would tend to be more careful when collecting but when others do it they tend to be more sloppy and spilling sap doesn't bother them.
Keith

[maple flats]

Another thing is how steep is the hill. On a gravity system I have heard of large numbers of taps on a 5/16 line giving natural vacuum. I think I have even seen someone on this forum say they had 75 taps on a steep hill and the sap shot out the bottom of the tubing with a lot of flow and force. Check the archives. If you are real steep I would suggest you go tubing and have long lines with lots of taps on each and spend your time boiling instead of collecting.

[Clan Delaney]

Go with tubing. Especially if you can leave it up all year 'round. Make that sap come to you! Maple Flats was dead on with that natural vac reference. (Who's got that .pdf?) If the lines are long enough and the slope is right then the weight of the sap in the lines will actually crate a vacuum that will pull more sap from the trees - more so than with buckets alone. For that reason alone you should string up the tubing.

[Bucket Head]

I have 44 taps on one 5/16 line thats about 400 ft long. There is a 30 ft drop in elevation from the first tap to the collection point.

I put a gauge on the line, just out of curiosity, and it had a little over 7 inches of natural vacuum.

I'm sure the steep grade had something to do with it. I can tell you that when conditions are just right, that line will flow continuosly. Not a gusher, but theres always flow for a couple days and nights.

I always keep an eye on that barrel because it will be full when the others hav'nt done much.

I need more natural vacuum!

Steve

[adk1]

Well, I can tell you that it is pretty steep, basically not too steep that I cant walk up it but steep enough that I dont want to have to! Put it this way, my water comes from a natural well above my house and the line goes into my basement. I know that the line is much bigger in dia than a sapline would be and it is going into my basement but before my pump I get 35lbs of pressure.
I will try to dig up a pic of my house

[peacemaker]

lay it out and buy some tubing i would run a wire and put up a 5?16 main line nice and tight and as straight down as possible and maybe it doesnt have to go all the way then dump it into a 1/2 ior 3/4 and run it right to you shack ...