mainline road crossing

[lew]

I am getting ready to set up a new section of woods that has some roadways in it. All of the roadway crossings can be overcome but one. This one runs almost straight up and down the hill, and would potentially cut through 5 or 6 3/4" mainlines that would run roughly parallel to the hill.. This wouldn't be such a problem, except that on one side of the road there is about 500 taps, on the other side about 75 max. Making 6 road crossings for this few taps seems like I am asking for a lot of potential vacuum leaks. My thought was to run one 3/4" line straight down the hill (on the side of the road with only 75 taps) and herring bone in the lateral lines. The problem I see with this is that the sap coming down the mainline will start to become turbulent, especially at the bottom where their is more sap and the pipe will have to make a 90 degree turn at the bottom. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

[brookledge]

Is there any way you can take those 5 or 6 mainlines and run each one with less slope until the mainline is say 10-12 feet in the air and then cross the road. As you work your way down the hill you will have a series of mainlines that are flatter than the slope of the land
I'm not sure I explained it clearly or not
Keith

[Thad Blaisdell]

What kind of Manifolds do you use? I would suggest that especially this one run into the type that use a 1.5 or 2 inch "T" that would end the turbulance and separate the air and sap at the entry to the wet line.

[lew]

I wish I knew how to draw a picture on this darn computer. That would be easier than trying to explain in words. I'll try and explain it a little more and see if this helps. The 3/4" mainlines will be running across the hill side and draining from right to left. They will drain into a wet/dryline system. the problem road is far to the right and the 75 taps are on the right hand side of that road. If I run the 3/4" mainline straight down the hill, I had thought about adding a 2" T at the bottom of the line where it will need to make a 90 degree turn to break up any turbulence. Actually, it would only need to be a 2" connector, sap feeding into the top and out the bottom. Perhaps it would work like the old "bubble busters" of the vented spile era.

Thad, I use 2" T manifolds at the wet/dry line. My concern was to eliminate the turbulence on 3/4" line all together. Perhaps it is not possible in this situation, and I will have to live with tubulence in this one line. It's not that the vacuum won't get to these taps, but just not as well on high flow days due to the turbulence created by the slope of the line and the 90 degree turn at the bottom.

Keith, I don't follow you.

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

I would just run the 3/4 down the hill. With only 75 taps on 3/4 mainline, there shouldn't be enough sap to get to the point to where the turbulance is a problem.

[Thad Blaisdell]

If turbulance is a great concern of yours you could always run an inch pipe instead of 3/4, the cost is not that much more and would give you that much more room for vacuum.

[collinsmapleman2012]

my best idea is to make that 90 degree turn as gradual as possible

[802maple]

My unprofessional opinion is that you are worrying to much about the turbulence.

[lew]

I think you are all right in that I am worrying too much about the turbulence. I am just so tickled with the results we have gotten with this woods since adding vacuum 2 years ago that I don't want to mess up anything. 2 years ago this tubing was 4 and 5 years old (hung 1 part of the woods one year and the other part the next) and was all gravity. I split the lines up and installed a wet/dry vacuum system. 2009 season resulted in 29.5 gallons sap per tap, YAAAHOO. Last year I installed new drops with stubbies and CVs, and got 19.5 gallons of sap per tap. I thought this was still great considering we only had 2 decent frosts after tapping and 1 marginal frost. I just want to keep these numbers up. And I suppose I am kind of looking at this like we should vacuum leaks. You can't shrug your shoulders at a small leak here and a small leak there. they all add up. I want to try to eliminate anything that could affect production. I am by no means a perfectionist, but I want to do my best at this tubing set-up. In reality I will only do it once(until it is time to replace the tubing).

Thanks for the replies.

[802maple]

Like you said the main thing is no leaks. Good luck