sub pump

[YAZER]

Thats a great response and good observations. I'm not sure how many taps or gals garyp makes a year... but for the small sugarmaker who isn't in it for a profit/living, I would think a oil free submersible pump would be fine.

Greg

[wiam]

Thats a great response and good observations. I'm not sure how many taps or gals garyp makes a year... but for the small sugarmaker who isn't in it for a profit/living, I would think a oil free submersible pump would be fine.

Greg

Personally if I would not sell it I would not feed it to my own family. There are states where it is not legal to plumb potable water with brass because of the lead in it. Brass pumps will not be allowed to pump sap with VT "proposed" voluntary certification. My guess it is because you are then concentrating any lead.

[red maples]

to "like minded farmer"..... I couldn't agree more. there are many many questions like that. We are a world dependent on chemicals and oil and LARGE amounts medications in our food supply, arsenic fed to chickens, An allowable amounts chemicals that aren't harmful in the level allowed by them selves but add them together they are lethal ........ don't get me started on monsanto and GMO's .....anyone using roundup should be drawn and quartered for supporting this company. then we wonder why the USA has the highest rate of obesity, cancer, diabetes, we now have the most cases of food allergies, we now have ADHD, and autism. amoung many other ailments cases by what we are "allowed" to do instead of using plain old common sense. one more thing. One stupid thing is and to me this is VERY backwards, if you use insecticides and pesticides chemical fertilizers, etc you don't have to label anything. But to be organic boy you better have the paperwork to back it up! with the 3rd party inspectors all you reciepts, blah blah blah. Somthing wrong with that.

OK now this is a little off topic to the guy who just asked about a sump pump.....nuff said for me on this subject sorry.

[twitch]

Brass is .07% lead. Brass is considered to be lead free if it does not contain more then .25 percent per the state of california.
If you look at the chemical composition of stainless there are things in it that are not good for you. read all about chromium 304 stainless is 18 %

[RileySugarbush]

and your fillings are likely 50% mercury. Time to panic and rip our teeth out!

[happy thoughts]

Brass is .07% lead. Brass is considered to be lead free if it does not contain more then .25 percent per the state of california.
If you look at the chemical composition of stainless there are things in it that are not good for you. read all about chromium 304 stainless is 18 %

I'm going to respectfully disagree. The EPA lead free standard for brass plumbing fittings or fixtures used for dispensing water for human ingestion is currently 8%. It changes to the California standard in 2014. Since sump pumps aren't usually used for potable water I'd assume they could exceed that limit and probably do.

http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesr...sfstandard.cfm

Brass is also loaded with zinc which can also be toxic. And brass corrodes pretty readily in the presence of moisture and that corrosion is going to end up in the water, sap, or whatever you're pumping. If it's sap, you're going to concentrate those levels 35-40 X or more by the time you've made syrup.

As for the components of Brass vs SS, stainless is much more corrosion resistant than brass so it's not really fair to compare them. I've never heard of anyone getting a new brass hip or knee It's the low reactivity that made high chromium SS an early choice for surgical implants. Chromium toxicity is rare and mostly occurs only when its powdered form is inhaled.

To each his own but imho if you need a sump pump for sap, you're probably talking a lot of sap. That means a whole lot of syrup that could potentially be contaminated with lead and zinc. For anyone starting out with plans to sell syrup, I'd say lead and zinc contamination is a big enough consumer concern to make it worthwhile enough to start out right, not only to build a reputation as a quality producer but also because there's a huge industry at stake. Proposed certification standards as in VT can only be a good thing imho and those producers who are certified will likely be able to get a better price.

Just my 2 cents