So last year was my first try with the ShurFlo 4008 pump, put it into a storage tub with the battery, had quick couplers on both sides for my 3/4" mainline and a small solar panel wired through the edge of the tub. I came close to tripling my flow of sap with this setup on 225 taps. After the first test I set up a second one on a 190 tap line. I work full time so I was taking the pump out and installing another hose onto the quick connect at night into the collection tank to catch any flow after I removed the pump. I am removing the pump to keep it from freezing up at night and damaging it. As I go to work at 6am and come home at 3pm I put the pump back in the storage tote to get it back pumping. It may have warmed up enough some days that the trees were already flowing by 10am, but I was missing that much without the pump and I was just getting gravity flow.
Can the ShurFlo pumps handle a freeze? I pull my battery also to recharge it as I don't get much sun where I have to locate my pumps on the south side of the woods. I'd like to put in some type of heater element from the battery, but believe i would run out of battery power before it warms up enough to prevent a freeze. I was getting up to 22-24 inches of vacuum with this when I could locate all my leaks, and would run about 15 inches when I had good runs flowing flooding the pump.
I would really like to leave the pump set up all the time unless i know we were getting a multi day freeze, If we were just getting down to about 20 at night and expecting above freezing the next day i would like to leave it in but don't want to chance freezing the pump and destroying it. Any solutions, or do I just keep doing it like I am currently?