Pumping sap uphill- what kind of pjmp

:) I never tried to flush out a sap line, but I have moved some hogs.... They don't want to go forward without a bit of a fight.... in reverse,. it a brawl...:o I digress... :emb: :cool:

I have a 700 foot run with 1 inch pipe to the sugarhouse. This is how I get sap that I haul in to the sugarhouse. I pump 40 feet up then basically straight a crossed. After pumping I switch valves around it put vac to the line through a releaser. It gets all but 5 gallons out of the line which I then drain into a 5 gallon bucket and carry over.

The pig idea sounds great, but how would you make sure that your compressed air is free of compressor oil? Last I heard, compressed air for scuba diving takes special certified compressors.

My pumping situation is quite different, but thought I'd share. I need to run at 25-30' lift but only about 120'. I use 3/4" tube and a Wayne 1HP stainless sprinkler pump that is set up for 1" . It's not a record breaker at about 7 gpm, but I already owned it. The pump is easily switched off and on, plus it has no flow checking. To prime I set it below tank fill level and to drain it I just tip it up on end. I would guess that the little Hondas have some sort of a swing type flapper valve that could be removed to allow easy drain back as well.

We pump 1600' with about 40' of total vertical rise. We use a 3/4 HP 10gpm deep well submersible, it has ~100' of 1" 160psi pipe, then the rest of the way is 3/4" 100psi. We ran 3/4 due to the volume of sap compared to all 1". We get 10gpm out of the discharge, and we run around 150-175psi at the pump. Our pump line is tee-ed and we drain the sap in the line back into a 50 gallon tote on a sled and tow it back to the sugarhouse. We always drain it after we are done pumping, unless we have to pump mid-run. Then it gets drained after we have done our final pumping.