Sap lifting tank

[Mark]

Does anyone use a sap lifting tank and is it any better than using the 5/16 spiders? I have 500 taps that I want to lift 13 feet.

[maplwrks]

They work very well. The down fall to them is that they need to be drained on every freeze, so placing them where you can get to them easily is key.

[Amber Gold]

I'm going to have a 2-pipe ladder with 400 taps and starting at 15' of lift. If it works well it's going to be 18' or 21' lift to get more pitch on the high line. I'd prefer that over the tank because when it does freeze, there's less sap to thaw out.

Russ Lampron had good results last year with his 200 tap, 2-pipe sap ladder.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I ran about 400 taps on three 6 star ladders about 6' high worked great...........OOPs I didnt drain them over a three week period. They did freeze but started bubbling as soon as the vacuum hit them and didnt take long to thaw. They didnt break from the freeze. The problem with a drain is you need to get to the bush early to close it or the natural flow will be dumped. Alot of days the natural flow was up the ladder and into the releaser.

[caseyssugarshack93]

maplewrks, is talking about the lifter, not sap ladders,, They need to be drained or the lifter will break, if froze, or some have built in drains that when the vac is off they drain,

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

I have several sap lifts with anywhere from 250 to 500 taps on them. They work well with little vacuum loss. Ones lifting larger amounts of sap need a manifold to level out the sap inflow. Drawbacks are the possibility of freeze up as mentioned. Mine are self draining when the vacuum is shut off. Problem with that is any sap that runs into them before vacuum start up drains out. I have had some problems with vacuum leaks in the lifter itself. If I physically stop the leak once, it will be fine the rest of the day but it can be a royal pain in the @#$%. When vacuum levels are high (over 20") they seal fine, unfortunately at start up, the leak in the lifter may be what is keeping the vacuum level below the 20".

[Mark]

I think I am going to try one with the manifold, but they sure are not cheap.
I run my vacuum for a couple hours after everything freezes.

[Gary R]

Just for curiosities sake, is the sap lifter the same as on page 35 of CDL's cataloge? It depicts a set up with a sap lifting tank. Is there anything in that tank other than sap? Thanks guy's

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Gary,
That is the one I have. There is a float inside the tank. As the sap reaches a certain level, the float allows a valve to open and the sap is sucked up the pipe. Also allows an air leak to facilitate the lift. It is this bleed that I have trouble with. Also, sometimes there will be a slight vacuum leak where the drain is to prevent freeze ups.
Doug

[GeneralStark]

Reviving an old thread here. I am setting up a new woods adjacent to my new sugarhouse which is on a plateau. Most of the woods has good slope, but there are about 100-150 taps on the plateau so I will be experimenting this season with a sap lifter to allow the mainlines for these taps to slope well and to lift the sap about 4-5 ft to the sugarhouse releaser. This is a Leader sap lifter so not talking about a sap ladder. My plan is to use a manifold on this sap lifter tank to allow for several mainlines to flow to the lifter tank. I am setting up this woods with the goal of having 2-3 taps per lateral and I am using a 15 cfm(@28") LR pump so there will be lots of mainline for about 500 taps.

These lifter tanks are designed to drain when the vacuum is shut off to minimize freeze up issues which I understand is the one drawback with these devices. I plan to run the pump 24/7 during the season unless there is an extended freeze so my plan is to put the lifter tank and manifold in an insulated box near the sugarhouse and heat the box with a 100 watt incandescent bulb. I have done this with a mechanical releaser with good success though slush coming down the mainlines has occasionally been an issue. The lifter will be run directly off an electric releaser in the heated room in the sugarhouse and the lifter will be about 25 feet from the releaser.

Has anyone tried running these lifter tanks 24/7 in a heated space? Has it worked okay? It seems like it should work but I'm curious what others think.

[markct]

If you have power available why not setup a pump with small chamber and float switch, similar to a electric releaser but not trying to pump out of the vacuum just move sap up within the same "atmosphere" under vac, much easier than trying to pump it out of the vac like a releaser and no vac loss or leak problems

[unc23win]

I thought what JoeJ said in this post was very good information about lifts as he has tried a few.
http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?21391-Price-per-tap

I am thinking about using one of the Lapierre ones myself although not having any first hand experience I thought that the picture in the CDL catalog which I believe very similar to the Leader picture, but the CDL picture was taken closer.

[GeneralStark]

If you have power available why not setup a pump with small chamber and float switch, similar to a electric releaser but not trying to pump out of the vacuum just move sap up within the same "atmosphere" under vac, much easier than trying to pump it out of the vac like a releaser and no vac loss or leak problems

I have considered putting the whole woods on the electric releaser outside the sugarhouse including the 100-150 that would be on the sap lift and pumping from there to the sugarhouse tanks and I may still go that route. With a heated room in the sugarhouse it seems somewhat simpler to keep the electric releaser there and lift the 150 taps four feet to the releaser, but I should consider this other option more.


I definitely don't want to use two pumps for 500 taps as it seems more complex than necessary and while a pump, float switch and chamber may seem like an easy solution, I don't think it is. The pump either has to be inside the chamber or out, and if it is outside high vacuum is not so easy. If it is is inside then I need to build a second electric releaser and that is overkill for 150 taps.