Vacuum systems and warm weather

[Jeff E]

I am curious what folks do with warm weather and vacuum systems.

I typically keep my vacuum on for short warm-ups, say 1-3 days, as I can keep pulling sap. The sugar and quality drop, but I keep the sap moving so taps stay 'fresh'.
We are in the midst of a 5 day stretch with no freezing. On Day 1 I pulled about 3000 gallons of sap from 2300 trees in 9 hours, but that night it just quit. The sap went from 300 gph to less than 30 gph.
With no freeze showing for 5 days, I did something I am not sure about. I shut off the vacuum.

My thought was take the time to clean things up and fix some things, and the day before the next freeze, drain lines, clean tanks and releasers and see what the freeze brings. I am hoping for a second half of the season.
What do others do in this situation?

[Russell Lampron]

I voted to keep the vacuum on. I keep it on until the next freeze or until the sap stops flowing. If the sap flow stops before it freezes again I'll shut it down like you did and clean and fix things.

[GeneralStark]

I don't shut the vac off until I have decided the season is over. I often see the flow slow way down at night during periods between freezes.

[Amber Gold]

Ditto what GeneralStark said. It stays on until the season's over. You want to keep things moving, so sap doesn't stagnate.

[TapTapTap]

Yup. Keep it running so the power company can stay in business during an otherwise slow time of year. That's one reason I installed a net meter solar. It's nice not stressing over the cost of making decisions you regret. My solar generation falls behind usage on boiling days with the RO running. But overall I net meter enough to pay all my usage, including our house.

Last week I got an email saying I've reached an all-time high usage of 23.4 kW.

[Jeff E]

Thanks all for voting and comments.
I think I should have left the vac on, per the comments. My production in volume is still OK, but we havent had a big run since that warm spell. We have a few days left, then a warm up with no end in sight. So the season is about 1 month long. I think shutting down for those 5 days wont have a big impact as it is a short season. If it stretched to 6 weeks, I probably would have lost the last week or so with taps healing up.

Spring in WISCONSIN! 2 nights ago 24 deg. yesterday warming to 41 in late afternoon, last night down to 34, today, a high of 66 with wind gusts of 50 mph. Tomorrow night, down to 18. Whew!!!