This is the first season that I have had spouts pushed out or rather loosen in the tap hole. I have used clear, straight acrylic spouts for twelve seasons and this is the first season the I have had any loosened by frost. I do all my own taping on 3,200 taps using a Lapierre taping hammer. After two weeks of the season with my vacuum running at 27", it suddenly dropped to a range of 19" to 22". I spent countless hours in the woods looking for leaks or the cause of the lower vacuum. I have a fisher and deer problem in the woods and put in probably between 120 and 150 couplings for repairs and replaced a bunch of chewed drops. After these repairs, the vacuum would go up a little and then drop back down. I had the mystery solved for me last Sunday as I started to pull the taps. After pulling 40 or 50 spouts, I noticed a few had really come out of the tap hole easily and without the normal "snap" noise as the spout was removed from the hole. Later that day and then for the rest of my spouts pulling, I kept a subjective count of the taps that were removed without the "snap". I counted between 10 and 12% of my spouts had been loosened in the tap hole.
With nothing better to do as I pulled the spouts, I tried the figure out if the spouts were loosened on a particular aspect of the tap hole. I didn't find any relationship to that. However, some of my lines face northerly and that part of the woods had more loose spouts than the west facing lines. I also put in 88- 90 degree clear acrylic spouts (they were free) on one west facing line and not one of them was loose. So next season, I think that I will be using all 90 degree spouts. The big problem with the clear straight spouts is not being able to tap the spout in without cutting off the drop line.(which I never did) Also, I did notice that the clear straight spouts have more taper than the 90 degree spouts. Most of the clear straight spouts, when removed, have a misshapen end on it that conformed to the tap hole. None of the 90 degree spouts had any misshapened ends on them.
Joe
2004- 470 taps on gravity and buckets
2006- 590 taps on gravity and buckets 300 gph RO
2009- 845 taps on vacuum no buckets, 600 gph RO
2010- 925 taps on vacuum new 2 stage vacuum pump
2014- 3045 taps on vacuum, new 1200 gph RO
2015- 3104 taps on vacuum
2017- 3213 taps on vacuum
3' x 10' oil fired evaporator with steamaway