Max Length of 3/16 Natural Vacuum

[Bill@mysticmaple]

I have two lines each about 1000 ft with about 80 ft drop. At the top of the runs showed a vacuum of 25, tubes at the bottom were running full on warm days! 32 taps on one and 27 on the other.

[maple flats]

My 3/16 have anywhere from 20 up to 33 on a line, with the longest at 750' long.

[Brassua]

What would be the draw back/problems with putting 50 taps on a single 3/16" natural gravity line 900' long with around 100' drop in elevation from the top of the line at the 1st tap to the storage tank at the bottom of the run?

[WV_ironman]

Main draw back would be a hole in the line from a squirrel or a deer and you would lose vacuum on all of your taps instead of just 1/2.
We had a line setup like this last year (52 taps) and ended up having to split it as the volume of sap overwhelmed the 3/16 on a good run. We split the line as close to even as possible and it worked much better.

[Bucket Head]

Tim Wilmot, who first studied 3/16 tubing, never had more than 37 taps on a line. Remember, 3/16 carries a lot less volume of liquid than 5/16 because of the smaller diameter. You'll restrict the flow to some degree with that many. You might want to do 2 lines of 50.

[psparr]

Bucket Head is right.
You'll basically have so much sap that it can't get out of its own way.

[n8hutch]

Bucket Head is right.
You'll basically have so much sap that it can't get out of its own way.

I would try to keep it at around 25-30, as has been said, only so much sap can travel through a 3/16 line in a 12 hr period, if you got 2 gallons per tap trying to run through the line on 30 taps your looking at 60 gallons per day, 50 taps your talking 100 gallons, that's alot in a small line,

I experimented with a 45 tap run and it did not perform as well gpt wise as a run with 10-15 taps, granted it was only a 2 year period but the 45 tap run only gave me at best 40 gallons per day , sometimes the smaller run would give 25 or more. I actually had a 5 tap run that would give 10 gallons on every run.

[n8hutch]

I think you could run your 3/16ths line into a 5/16ths line after you attained your desired drop say 35ft after the last tap, the 5/16 line could act as a main line for 100 taps. And you wouldn't have to run a wire or go through alot of trouble. 500' of rigid 5/16 tubing is significantly cheaper (about 40.00$) than running 2 or 3, 3/16 lines down to your tank.

[Bucket Head]

Yeah, I meant to say 25 per line, lol.

[SognSyrup]

We've got 7 lines between 600-900' with between 22-35 taps each line. Approx 125' drop to collection. Anxious to see what we get for results.