Hi Everyone,
Yesterday was a crazy run up here, our mini pump system with 15 taps got us 35 gallons yesterday between 1PM and about 1AM, so we spent today collecting from the various sites and buckets. I did make it over there to the lot today, the temp was about 32 with some wind but very sunny, so I checked and most of the laterals and drops were thawed out. I turned the pump on, attached the vac gauge to the saddle 2 feet up the line that we will be using to check vac all the time, and still 0. Went to the first tree where we had an issue with the drill basically being pushed into one part of the tree when tapping, pulled the first tap, heard nothing, plugged it up, and the pump started laboring and it read 12 inches, so we were headed in the right direction. I assumed the tree was hollow/dead, so I pulled the other tap and bam almost instantly 19 inches, and after about 10 minutes 21'', I was pumped! I checked the vac on the second tap to verify and it was reading 19 same as the pump. I never thought of a hollow tree being a possibility for an issue, so THANK YOU!! I continued to walk the line, checking for weeping taps and giving them another hit or two. I had to move a saddle because it was causing a damming of the water due to our inexperience last year, so I plugged the old one, and added a new one and the pool of sap disappeared. By the time I got to the last tap pulled it and put the gauge on, my heart sunk…1 inch, the line is only 250 or so feet long, maybe a bit less. I walked up and down checking and listening but nothing seemed off. I plan on walking the lines when there is a good run to see if there was any ice issues like you were mentioning. We do have an ice strainer before an on/off valve which may have gotten filled with ice from the pool of water rushing down, which would still cause the first gauge to read ideal while preventing vacuum to the rest of the line. We still want to hook up our ladder, but figured we would get everything prior to the ladder working correctly before we add the last 40 or so taps.

Any other ideas other than an ice **** why we would have great vac at the pump and nothing after that? Come to think of it, lines that were only maybe 30-40 feet from the pump which were moving initially were not moving after I moved that saddle. We were still getting gravity drips tonight when we picked up the battery so some sap was making it through.

I appreciate your help guys

Thanks
Mike