Need advice on vacuum tubing installation on level ground

[Thad Blaisdell]

This is what I would do,

First you need a transit to make sure that you can have at least .5 slope.

Run a 1.25 at least 1500 feet and then 1 inch the rest. no dry line necessary.

key is to not have sags. you may need to run 2 wires on the 1.25 to help with that. With the bigger pipe you can overcome the necessity for wet dry, as you are only doing one row. put in posts where necessary every 10-15-20 feet apart, enough to keep out sags..... very important no sags. You may have to put in a sap ladder somewhere in the middle to make it easier.

Hope this helps.

[ldick]

I appreciate all the advice. Still trying to understand how a 2 line (wet and dry lines) system works. Can anyone recommend a good place to read up on it?

[unc23win]

There are two books that I know of North American Maple Producers Manual and Design, Installation and Maintenance of Plastic Tubing Systems both are available form The Maple Guys http://www.mapleguys.com/index.php?category=17

Proctor Maple Research Center has some online publications I know there are some on vacuum not sure if they have any that talk about Wet/Dry lines for sure.

The basic idea is that the wet line will be used to transport sap while the dry line will maintain vacuum if you use one line and have too much sap for it then the sap will stop the vacuum from going any farther. As Thad said one large line could work for you as long as you don't have too many taps going into it.