Vacume capabilities??

[PARKER MAPLE]

Ok so I have been wondering about adding vacume to two of my lines this fall for awile, As of right now I see there is a surge bb2 pump listed in classified here. what im wondering is what capabilities are, what im trying to accomplish is I have a 400 ft run that drops about 60-70ft in elevation. The only fiesible way for me to do this is to place the pump at the top of the hill and try to pull the sap uphill. were talking about 250 taps here also. would this do it??

What do you think?
maple rookie

[red maples]

You can't pull it up hill. You still need to to have downward slope reguardless of vacuum. You could put in a series of sap ladders(lifts) or you could run the vacuum at a remote spot and have the releaser and collection tank in the woods at your low point and get a sap pump to pull the sap where you need it to be. that's probably what I would do in your case.

If you can avoid the ladders you'll have beter off. If you go with the sap lifts I would shoot for a bigger vacuum to handle the lose of vacuum farther out. like an sp22 which can handle quite a few more taps than a bb2. hope that helps.

See what some of the other more experienced vacuum guys say!!!

[brookledge]

You are going to have to pump the sap up hill from the bottom. 60 to 70 feet drop in elv. is to much for a vac to lift using sap lifts. So the way I see it your only option is to run it to the low spot and then pump it out to an area you can reach it. The only thing to remember is make sure the pump line out of the low point can drain so that it doesnt' freeze in low spots
Keith

[Russell Lampron]

You can have the vacuum pump at the top of the hill and run a vacuum line from there to the releaser at the bottom of the hill. You will have to go to the tank to gather it though. A transfer pump at the bottom of the hill may not be able to push the sap up more than 35' or so. You can run a line down the hill and test it with water first. If the pump pushes water all of the way to the top you be all set. If not it's gather at the bottom and truck it up the hill.

[Thad Blaisdell]

Or if gathering it is not an option, a generator and a pump will lift it up and over, or possibly a gas powered pump.

[PARKER MAPLE]

Ok guys thanks for all the great input. Heres the senario. Sugarhouse and power are at top of the hill. If the vacume wont pull the purposed lift and run to the tank at bottom of the hill, then if I put the vacume at the sugarhouse and run vacume line to the releaser at bottom of the hill. Do i have this right, also will i loose any vacume over the added distace of more line?

I have a biger 3in pump that my farther has seggested maybe sizing down from 3in to like 2or 1 1/2 and he thought it would push it up the hill. But what im concerned about is loosing all that sap everytime it runs back. probably will be quite a bit?? What do you think??

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Maple Rookie,
I use a 2 inch gas powered pump and squeeze it down to 1 inch to pump through. Go over about 75 foot head and 4000 ft of distance. Pumping is no problem. If you go to a 1 " pipe, There won't be as much to run back and the pipe won't be as expensive. Use your bigger pipe to transfer the vacuum down to the releaser. That will be a more critical problem.

[Amber Gold]

Water pumps are very good at pushing liquid vertically. They are very poor at sucking liquid vertically. I wouldn't think 60-70' wouldn't be much of a problem.

Vacuum loss over 400' from pump to releaser is negligable if the vac. line is size appropriately. I've run them 800' and will be running a 900' line this year. I think Russ is in the same area as well.

If you can run electric down there, a nice setup is a well pump in the tank mounted on a float switch. This would allow you to run the pump and well pump at the releaser. Running just those two things, the load isn't that great so the wire would be cheap. This would save you the hike down there with the pump.

[ennismaple]

We run vacuum 2000 feet from the pump to one of our releasers. It runs at the same vacuum level as the releaser that sits right beside the pump.

There are lots of cheap pumps that will push the sap from your 250 taps up that slope. Tanaka makes one that's gas powered.

[Russell Lampron]

My releaser has been 900' down the hill from my sugar house. This season it is going to be 600' farther away. I use a 1.25" pipe for vacuum from the pump to the releaser. The vacuum level at the pump and releaser are the same.

I use a 1" pipe for sap from the tank to the sugar house. When it drains back down I drain it into two 35 gallon tanks on a trailer behind my 4 wheeler. The 900' of pipe holds about 40 gallons of sap. I use a Honda WX10 1" gas powered pump to pump the sap up the hill. I plan to upgrade that to a 2" pump and adapt it down to 1" to get the sap up the hill that much faster.