Brand new to tubbing, help!

[Biz]

Shane, were you able to measure vacuum at the top of the problem line? I assume that you get good natural vacuum on your 8% slope. Maybe the long flat 3/16 tubing at the end reduces it. If so, could you put the collection tank at the bottom of the steep part, and pump it out through a transfer line when full. Seems like that way you get the advantage of natural vacuum but not the downside of the flat run. Just a thought. Might be an interesting test.

Dave

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

We did not have a vacuum gauge there last year. We could do as you suggest, would lose a couple taps doing so. Moving the collection tote would also make it a little harder to access. We pump from the tote now, it doesn’t run to the sugar house. Going to experiment some more for sure.

[DrTimPerkins]

...could you put the collection tank at the bottom of the steep part, and pump it out through a transfer line when full. Seems like that way you get the advantage of natural vacuum but not the downside of the flat run.

Excellent suggestion Dave. If it doesn't create too many other issues with pumping, this would be the way to go. You could run 5/16" tubing to pick up any trees on the flat ground.

[w8nfsnow]

I'm new to this hobby but had good success this past season. Ran 6 runs of 3/16" tubing with 20 taps on each for a total of 120 taps with minimal overall slope maybe 1% and 1-2' of drop from each of the last taps. Each of the 6 runs are similar at 400-500' in length.

I decided to build a small vacuum system using a Shurflo 4008 with some logic to turn the pump on and off based off outside temperature as well as a timer to control what time of day the pump was allowed to run. We had an odd season with many days not going below freezing and I didn't want the pump to run all night based of temperature alone to save the deep cycle battery from going low. In my mind I felt the 3/16' tubing would be a better fit over the 5/16" since the principle of a more continuous column of sap could be an advantage to the Shurflo pump similar to natural slope gravity. I suppose there is the devil of parasitic type drag within the line but still I couldn't be happier with the overall results with consistent 23-25" of vacuum at the top end of each line during decent runs.