How Far

[Fred Henderson]

How far can sap be pulled, like if the tress are a long ways from the sugarhouse. I woud like to have all my equipment in a room next to the evap and pull it 2 miles. Can it be done?

[KenWP]

You have to take in the difference in elavations. I did irragation all my life and even with a pump the size of a car you can only pump water so far. I imagine if your going down hill a bit and and use a little bigger mainline you could pump it from the sugar bush to the shack but sucking it would be a take a pretty good pump.

[PerryW]

Water (or sap) can only be pulled up a maximum vertical rise of 32 feet by suction. Anything more than 32 feet, you need to you a submersible pump (at the lower end of the pipeline) or some other pumping scheme like a jet pump.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Pumping it 2 miles is alot easer than sucking it 2 miles. What does 1" mainline hold as far as liquid. air is the problem when you try and suck liquid that far air bubbles will cause the pump to cavitate and lose suction stoping the flow. Plus if you dont have full lines your pump will lose its prime. We all have tried to use natural suction to help with sap flow to siphon the sap over dips and valleys but one air bubble and were screwed.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Fred: I came up with a calculation of 432 gallons of liquid just in the 1" pipe now if that sits in there and freezes or turns sour? So you start your pump and drain ypur 1000 gallon tank and the first 432 gallons look like Mountain Dew and stink like pig^&%&(^% your not going to be happly.
I drove over a 1000 miles just picking up sap 250 gallons at a time this year and a bigger tank woulnt fit on the truck with the tools and pump and hoses. I feel your pain

[danno]

Are we understanding what Fred is asking?

Fred - are you talking about pumping sap from a remote collection tank to your sugarhouse, or running mainline 2 miles to your trees.

If the later, if you have grade - it will run and as long as the system is tight, don't think you will lose much vacuum, just might take a minute ot two to build of the vacuum when you start the pump.

[Fred Henderson]

What I am asking is is it possible to pull sap 2 miles with vac, if I have a good downhill grade and nothing will stay in the line and freeze. I want to have the vac pump, releaser and all related equipment in the SH.

[Russell Lampron]

Fred if it is downhill all of the way it will work. If there is a small incline in the middle somewhere you can build a sap ladder to get over it. On a vertical lift 1" of vacuum will lift a colume of sap 1 foot.

[Haynes Forest Products]

So what your wanting to do is entice it along and get the natural vacuum working and then KATTY BAR THE DOOR sounds good to me. How many taps are we talking? Plus I would think the smaller the mainline the better so you dont have a lose of vac due to air stopping it.

[Fred Henderson]

Looking at 2000 to start and going up to 4000 total.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Fred,
Distance should not be a problem as long as you have a consistent slope. A potential of 4000 taps helps as the big cost will be in the tubing. Gonna take a lot of plastic. You will probably need to run a wet line, dry line system. Short answer is it is probably doable but will be some $'s involved.
Doug

[maplecrest]

try number 2. lost power. had to restart r/o. try again. i have 4200 running to the sugar house. one line is 5000 feet before first tap. i have 300 on a 1 inch line that works great but not when it is 60 degrees. need to paint white. the next line has 4 lift systems on it 3 hundred taps. the final system is 5200 feet of wet dry with 8 boosters and another 2000 feet beyond the last booster and 3600 taps. all going to a horizonal benard releaser. the system works great. the only problem is the large distance to maintain. alot of walking and time looking and maintaining leaks

[peacemaker]

why not a push pull set up one pump at the bush on a flaot system and another at the sugar house to drain the line ?like fieman do with the pumps on the trucks one at the source one at the fire