Shurflo - 3/16 lines and manifold

[bryankloos]

Hey all,

I have planned for 2020 about 60ish taps on 6 laterals (6-16 taps per line, 200-400' long) coming into a Shurflo 4008 on mostly flat ground.
My original plan was to have a 6 way 5/16 star fitting at at the pump to accept my 6 laterals.

It was suggested to me that the 6 way star could be a bottleneck on big runs and that I'd be better suited with a manifold of 1/2 PVC with 6 seperate Tees off of which I have an individual 5/16 fittings.

I'm soliciting input from users to provide guidance as to which will be best. I'm assuming the manifold is best, but will I really not be able to pull 60 taps worth of sap through the star at reasonable speed/volume?

All help is appreciated..

Thanks,

Bryan

[iby]

last year I was on 3/16" tubing with a shurflow running into a 3/4" PVC manifold. 4 of my lines had 50+ taps on them, 2 lines had 25 each... everything ran fine...
my point here is... I was running 50 taps on a single 3/16" line and it poured in... I was pleased . so I think you'd be fine using the star.. ***but manifold would alleviate the bottleneck for sure..

that said... greed got the best of me this year so I split all those lines into 25 taps each max... everyone here says less is better... so I'll be curious how this season goes with less taps / line and running into a 1" mainline... if my volume doubles, then I'll know that what I considered fine last year actually was incorrect...

[DrTimPerkins]

….but will I really not be able to pull 60 taps worth of sap through the star at reasonable speed/volume?

Short answer...no. In this case it is best to not put all your eggs in one basket.

When the firemen come to your house do you want them to use a garden hose coming off your house or a fire hose coming off a hydrant? With either you'll get liquid coming out...but one will do the job of putting the fire out and the other probably won't. On peak flow days that style of manifold connected to multiple lateral lines will create a bottleneck and reduce flow. Better to have separate saddles for each lateral line run coming off a short 3/4" line. Better for repairs also...what impacts one line is less likely to affect the others.