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Thread: Cleaning 3/16ths lines after the season

  1. #41
    Join Date
    Apr 2018
    Location
    North Abington, PA
    Posts
    19

    Default I wonder if this would work

    I just put up about 35,000 feet of 3/16 tubing. In he past, we always cleaned 5/16 with just water, but after doing some research, I want to try using calcium hypochlorite. I've got an idea about how to do it, and I'm curious if anybody thinks it will or won't work, or whether it'll be a total pain. Most of the lines are long with a substantial drop and 20-30 taps. My plan is to have someone walk across the tops of the lines with buckets of solution. They pull the last spout, put it in the bucket, and let gravity suck it down until the line is full of solution. A person at the bottom then caps it off. With the last tap still siphoning from the bucket at the top, each tap is pulled, allowed to fill, then plugged. Then the top spout is plugged and we move on. Solution will sit in lines and drops overnight and be drained the next day. Comments? Thanks
    Last edited by springhillsmaple; 02-12-2019 at 07:55 AM.

  2. #42
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Hopkinton, MA
    Posts
    1,778

    Default

    I did that with mechanical vacuum last year. Not sure I'm going to do it again. At places the line is overhead and it was a pain getting a bucket up to some taps. In your case, I'm not sure you would be able to maintain a natural vacuum as you go down the line. I think maybe each time a little air is introduced you would eventually lose your siphon.

    I like the squirt bottle idea from the video in terms of ease of use, but I'm not sure how to keep the drop filled with solution for 30+ minutes.

    I have one area with 100 taps with brand new drops that I think I'm going to experiment on. I think I'll use your bucket method or the squirt bottle to fill the lateral with one of the bleach solutions for 30 min then cut out the drops and soak them (spouts and all) in a big PVC tube in the same solution. Next year, they'll go out with new tees.

    As I was cutting in the new tees this year, I was thinking this would kinda suck to do every year. 3/16" tees take a little more finesse than the 5/16", but if the results are as good as mentioned in the video, it might be worth it. I'd like to see a follow-up to this article to see what Art noticed after doing this cleaning.
    Woodville Maples
    www.woodvillemaples.com
    www.facebook.com/woodvillemaples
    Around 300 taps on tubing, 25+ on buckets if I put them out
    Mix of natural and mechanical vac, S3 Controller from Mountain Maple
    2x6 W.F. Mason with Phaneuf pans
    Deer Run 250 RO
    Ford F350
    6+ hives of bees (if they make it through the winters)
    Keeping the day job until I can start living the dream.

  3. #43
    Join Date
    May 2018
    Location
    NH
    Posts
    2

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    Here is my plan for backflushing/cleaning my system: We have a brand new tubing system this year. 150 taps. 1000 foot long, 3/4" mainline, 3/16" laterals. 100 feet vertical from the sugar shack to the top of the mainline. In order to backflush and clean the system, I plan on buying a positive displacement pump that can pump water at least 150 feet high, and connect that to the bottom of the mainline. I will pull all the taps and start pumping water up the mainline. I will walk up the mainline and start plugging spouts that have water squirting out of them. This will ensure water makes it to the top most taps. Once I have squirted some water out all the taps, then I will shut off the pump and go unplug all the taps to let the system drain. Think this will work?

    Pete
    Brown's Sugar Orchard, Bradford NH
    2015-2017 2x3 flat pan evaporator and 75 buckets with no clue
    2018 - running lines for the first time! 1000 foot gravity mainline and 100 taps still have no clue

  4. #44
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Oneida NY
    Posts
    11,547

    Default

    That will fill the lines but it only rinses them does little to clean them. Still better than nothing.
    Dave Klish, I recently ordered 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.

  5. #45
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Hopkinton, MA
    Posts
    1,778

    Default

    Curious if there were noticeable results on sap flow from the OP. I'm going to cut the drops in a section of 100 new taps and soak them in calcium hypochlorite. Where can I get calcium hypochlorite? Pool supply stores?
    Woodville Maples
    www.woodvillemaples.com
    www.facebook.com/woodvillemaples
    Around 300 taps on tubing, 25+ on buckets if I put them out
    Mix of natural and mechanical vac, S3 Controller from Mountain Maple
    2x6 W.F. Mason with Phaneuf pans
    Deer Run 250 RO
    Ford F350
    6+ hives of bees (if they make it through the winters)
    Keeping the day job until I can start living the dream.

  6. #46
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Weston, CT
    Posts
    473

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
    Using IPA is allowed under Canadian law. It is not allowed under US law. By your logic, anyone driving a BMW should be allowed to drive on the left side of the road in the US.

    We also use bandaids on our cuts. Doesn’t mean we want them in our syrup.

    You may argue about it all you like, but using IPA in the US is currently illegal. Give it a try and find out how far any of those arguments get you with the EPA. Best of luck. If you are that confident about it, call the Ohio Dept of Ag and Ohio Dept of Health and argue with them. I bet you will lose.
    Untill I read this I was taking everything you said as the Word Of The Maple God!

  7. #47
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    Middlebury In. U.S.
    Posts
    116

    Default

    A couple of pictures of the unit I made up to put the sanitizer in the drops. I switched to 5/16 drops and zap back Spouts. A piece of 5/16 tubing fits over the sprayer tube and also over the spout.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  8. #48
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Hopkinton, MA
    Posts
    1,778

    Default

    I like that and may use it next year. I had very good luck with the squirt bottles Art used for his. I have two half-Liter bottles and I was amazed at how far they went. I got close to 50 drops out of a Liter. For the older drops that will stay on for another year, I filled the drop like he did and stuffed the end onto the plastic plug of the T so the drop stayed filled. I let those sit for a day (but some are getting more soak time). I unplugged and drained them when I took the lines down. I usually let the first day of a run go to ground, so I'll do that to flush them next year.

    This was way easier than the water flushes I was doing with a hose or with a bucket on the vacuum lines. If it ends up improving yield, all the better.
    Woodville Maples
    www.woodvillemaples.com
    www.facebook.com/woodvillemaples
    Around 300 taps on tubing, 25+ on buckets if I put them out
    Mix of natural and mechanical vac, S3 Controller from Mountain Maple
    2x6 W.F. Mason with Phaneuf pans
    Deer Run 250 RO
    Ford F350
    6+ hives of bees (if they make it through the winters)
    Keeping the day job until I can start living the dream.

  9. #49
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    Middlebury In. U.S.
    Posts
    116

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by wlatrout View Post
    A couple of pictures of the unit I made up to put the sanitizer in the drops. I switched to 5/16 drops and zap back Spouts. A piece of 5/16 tubing fits over the sprayer tube and also over the spout.
    Thought I would repost this for anyone looking for an easy way to flush your lines.

  10. #50
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Hopkinton, MA
    Posts
    1,778

    Default

    I was just out doing some end-of-season sanitizing and thought of updating this thread, too. My experiment of cutting drops last year and sanitizing them in a tub seems to have worked well - or at least well enough to repeat and expand the strategy. Year 2 of this particular gravity setup kept up with a new tubing vacuum setup I had - not gallon for gallon, but proportionally throughout the season. That is it had big runs when the vac area did and both lines dried up at the same time. The gravity setup has around 100 taps and the vac has around 75. The gravity line seems to have repeated its performance compared to last year, too but I think comparing year to year is tricky because we had so many warm spells this year compared to the repeated deep freezes we had last year. I suppose the fact that it made it through the warm spells as long as the new tubing did says a lot.

    I'll suck some sanitizer into the laterals of my gravity lines and then I'm going to cut the drops from the vac lines and sanitize those like I did the gravity line. I tried to use the squirt bottle to get some sanitizer into the laterals, but that had mixed results. It would sometimes travel a few drops and then drain out or sometimes it wouldn't travel at all. I'll try it before cutting off the drops on another line to see if that helps. Otherwise, I might try that spray pump idea to push it in from the top end and force it all the way down. Getting 3/16" lines to drain is kind of a pain.
    Woodville Maples
    www.woodvillemaples.com
    www.facebook.com/woodvillemaples
    Around 300 taps on tubing, 25+ on buckets if I put them out
    Mix of natural and mechanical vac, S3 Controller from Mountain Maple
    2x6 W.F. Mason with Phaneuf pans
    Deer Run 250 RO
    Ford F350
    6+ hives of bees (if they make it through the winters)
    Keeping the day job until I can start living the dream.

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