MAINLINE QUESTIONS

[SUGARSMITH]

Looking at other peoples setups for mainline, I saw where a 3" sch 40 pvc pipe was used. I was wondering is this was overkill. But after reading another post about cfm, I am wondering if this is beneficial. Now I am considering running this out to at least the edge of my sugarbush and then hook the smaller 3/4" and 1" lines to it. My vacumn pump has a 4" plug in the tank I could hook this right up to.

Does anyone think this would be advantageous? Right now I have 2 1" lines from the releaser to the sugarhouse.

Any advice would be apprecited. Right now I have the vacumn setup for years but I know there is a lot of room for improvement

Regards

Dan Adam

[brookledge]

Dan,
The best answer I have is for you to do some testing on your current set up. If you are getting good vacuum every where now then why go to the expense of increasing to larger pipe size. There is so many factors in the answer also such as # of total taps, the slope of the system,the size of the main lines, what type of 5/16 tubing you have, the # of fittings in the 5/16 tubing and on and on. Regular tubing that sags and is shortened to take up slack is basicly streching out which actually is narrowing the diameter of the tubing. If you where to measure the diameter of older tubing you might find it is only 3/16 or 1/4 instead of 5/16 Newer types are more rigid and do not strech as much.
You can make up a vacuum gauge to go over a tap. Go out to the ends of your lateral lines and see what you have for a vacuum reading. The best time to do this is under heavy flows which is when you need the most CFM. Pull out a tap put vaccum gauge on and see what the reading is. If you are losing alot of vacuum than you need to make improvements. The Leader Catolog has a good guide for maximizing your set up. Another very important thing is to regularly inspect your lines. A simple nick in the tubing by a squirrel will allow a tremendous amount of air in. with out vacuum it might not leak but under vacuum it will. Other things you might need are a vacuum booster or you can add a dry line over your wet line.So I hope this helps even thogh it is alittle long winded. I just hate to see anyone put in that large of a pipe because it would be very expensive an it may not get you anymore in return. You could ask the one who has a 3" line how many taps they have on it. 3,000-4,000 and 3" is probably the correct size

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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I would avoid using large pvc as mainline (wet or dry) unless you really need it. You don't need it unless you have at least 7000 or more taps all running together. The pvc gets brittle with age and if it ever gets full then freezes it will bust.
A better approach would be to use several smaller wet and dry lines with polyethylene tubing. A 1.5 inch dry line and a 1.25 inch wet line will handle several thousand taps and if used with seperators will transfer vacuum a long way.
Another side to this is way oversized mainlines tend to be bacteria traps and warm up sap quicker.

[SUGARSMITH]

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[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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