Ideally 30' drop after your last tap on 3/16 BUT even 10' gives you natural vacuum. What is the drop across the yard from last tree to your collection point? Remember, now a diaphragm pump can help too.
With 5/16 you are best (with vacuum) to have 5 taps /line, never more than 10 AND the laterals should not be over 100' long, less is even better. With 3/16 the numbers change radically. As long as the part after the last tap has a drop, you can run lines 1200-1500' or even more (I'm not sure, as long as you have drop that there is a maximum, but there might be, and you can put easily 25 taps on a line, in fact at one time 37 was the stated max, however I had one this past season that had 41 taps and was 1450' long. At the top my slope was minimal, but after it started down hill, I had a 60' drop, but with taps on the way down. I think on that particular line I had about 12' drop below the lowest tap. I also had 18-19" vacuum on the lines that the 3/16 tied into. I had 2 vacuum gauges on that line, the end tree (uphill) had 28-29" depending on the barometric pressure, the lowest tap had 26-27" vacuum. This being said, I plan to split that line in 2 for 2018, I think I'll get more sap.
Looking at the yard picture, if you come down that slope, then run the 3/16 into a manifold going into a diaphragm pump you should do well. Now you could run a 120V pump rather than a 12V. If you go that plan, run the 3/16 all the way down, do not tie into a mainline at the top (unless you have a good vacuum pump and a releaser). The long slope will generate vacuum.
In the woods, if you are going to finish with a long slope downhill, you can even get away with some ups and downs in the woods. While not ideal, it still works well, with 5/16 you really hurt flow big time if you have a low spot.
In my first year with 3/16 I had a big limb fall on my 3/16 line, when I discovered it I just had to watch the flow for several minutes, I stood there watching the sap/gas/sap/gas etc (gas is really carbon dioxide) flow from above, then down in a small depression (maybe 7-8' drop), then under the branch and then the marching column flowed back up to the next tap past that low spot and then proceeded down hill. Of course, my drop after that next tap had good drop, at least 40'.
Dave Klish, I recently bought a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
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Originally Posted by n8hutch
