3/16 and CV2, reality check

[Tor Haxson]

I run 3/16 tubing on runs of 10 trees or so in locations where I have enough drop to get vacuum.

I am replacing all last years CV2 spouts with new ones. I think they are what we call CV2, clear spout, with rubber ball, costs about 40cents.

Is that reasonable ?

Are the CV2 one season spouts or are folks re-using them ?

Thanks,

Tor

[unc23win]

Yup that's what they cost .40 and they are for one season.

[Tor Haxson]

Thanks Jared,

That is what I thought, but I was just making sure.

--
Tom

[coyote]

How are you attaching the spout? Short piece of 5/16?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I use 8" piece of 3/16 and 24 to 30 inch piece of 5/16".

[Tor Haxson]

How are you attaching the spout? Short piece of 5/16?

Yes, I go from the CV2 to a short section of 5/16, then with a mcmaster carr union piece that goes to 3/16, then on down the hill.

So the spouts are replaced each year, the rest of the lines I should replace after how many years?

I try to rinse and dry them well at the end of the season but it is challenging, once I place the line I let the gravity siphon a few gallons of water through the system for a rinse.

I suppose after a few years replacing the lines is a good idea. Unless the squirrels decide for me when it is time to replace. :-)

--
Tor

[unc23win]

It's a good idea to replace drop lines about every 5 years your other lines 5-10 years. When a drop line is new there is not much benefit of using a check valve. As you said the critters might decide when it is time to replace line.

[BreezyHill]

We use a simple equation 1-5-10-20, but with the recent data on washing lines from Cornell and UVM this will likely change to a 1-7-14-20.

Spouts every year with a clear seasonal because we peroxide after season and will be giving it a shot into the drop after removing the old spout. In the past 40+ years we cloroxed but I think the peroxide is a better/safer alternative for the tubing.

Drops were every 5 years and now looking at 7-10 years, dependent on how the washing of the lines keeps them looking, compared to how it looked when it was new. If they start to darken or shrink, then they will come down that summer.

Lines of 5/16 is a mater of inside cleanliness and duarability. If the drops will go to 7-10 years then we will likely change the drops and the lats at the same time since when I have used a tubing remover on a tee they are prone to micro leaks. So now we just cut them out and switch to a new drop on a y for better flow.

Mains...two seasons back we had a section implode that was around 18-22 years old. I am likely to stick to a 20 year change time frame there; as it was a pain in the but. Vac on all night long as sap was still running at 11 pm. First thing in the am stepped out the back door and you could hear the whistling from a half mile away. My heart sunk when I saw several lats on the ground and I was missing a good 25 feet of mainline. There was a deer trail just about dead center so I figure one of them hit it and that was all she wrote. Funny how the deer avoid that part of the bush now.

It is very easy to become lax in changing drops and tubing, and with the new data but one must always factor in durability. If you are finding more leaks on connections it is past time to change your lines.

Keep a log book of when you install mains, drops, and lines. store it in a safe place and take a pic of the page for the backup drive. The cost of cleaning products and tubing is far cheaper than the lose of production from a bush for a season. Even more painful is having to change a main in the season when you should be doing other more timely things.

If you know of or are part of a snow club, offer to accept the old signs as they are replaced. I will be putting up these to Id ladders and mains for tours and ease of maintance by my sons and crew. We are also signing the woods trails so that the work crews don't get lost, this was my sons idea after I sent them to clean brush on a trail and they ended on the wrong trail. Hard to survey thru honey suckle.

The Object Marker Signs and any of the Yellow warning signs turned over make great signs for the bush. Just use a paint pen to put names and info on. Install on a painted plywood backer and use an aluminum nail to secure and they will last 15-20 years. Use screws and you will only get 5-7 years. We have over 1000 OM's to change as the manufacturer tried to make the black lines reflective one year to save money. They soon found they were defective but no recall.

Most of my crews just discard the signs but if somebody wants some pm me and I will tell them to save them.

Ben

[DrTimPerkins]

The efficacy of cleaning depends greatly upon the sanitizer and how it is used. Sucking a small amount of solution in under vacuum does not provide the contact time necessary for sanitizers to work as well as they should. Removal of drops/spouts from the woods and soaking them in sanitizing solution for 30 min does. Regardless of the sanitizer used, rinsing, or allowing the first sap to run on the ground is necessary. Replacing spouts seems to have about the same (or better) results on yield than cleaning-in-place (CIP) with vacuum. Combined CIP and replacement of spouts has little additive effect (on yield at least) compared to either CIP or spout replacement. Each of these strategies also comes with its own set of material (spouts, fittings, tubing, sanitizer) and labor costs, so it is not as simple as finding the approach that results in the highest yield level. While removing drops from the woods to clean inside is more effective in terms of yield enhancement, and might be a good way to go for smaller producers, it simply is not feasible for producers who have thousands of taps to deal with.

As Ben says, UVM PMRC and Cornell have finished one season of a major study looking at various cleaning, replacement, and combination strategies in terms of their effect on yield. We are also examining costs, and thus the net profit of each approach. The goal (after the 2015 season) is to have a spreadsheet or web-based tool where producers can plug in some of their own values and their current approach, and get an estimate of the yield, cost, and net profit for a variety of alternative approaches so they can choose the method that works best for their own operation and management goals. Stay tuned.