I've heard they have good results with 1/2" risers. I have a needle valve by my ladders that I can crack to allow a little air in if the system is tight.
We have thought about the 1/2 inch pipe for our risers and the valve to let air in. Still experimenting. Keep the ideas coming and we have a few that we are going to try this year.
I have one I lift it 10 feet up over about 30 ft up another 10 ft then it travels all the way to my releaser. Same thing I would have 25 vacuum before the ladder and could only get 18 after it 'with all the leaks fixed drove me crazy for 2 days then a woodpecker pecked a hole in a drop line at the end of my main line I vacuumed shot up to 23. at the very end of my main line I put a saddle and about 3 ft of tubing on it I take my Sharp knife polk a couple pin holes in it I've got figured out how much air to let in so I can get 23 in on the lift side I found I get more vacuum if I let the air and at the very end of the mainline on the ladder side
Great video! Wondering how you keep tension on your overhead transfer line and lows out of it? We have many low sags in ours and if it goes too tight it blows out of the tree. Do you use high tension cable or aircraft wire? Any tips would be great! Thanks!
We use 9 gauge wire and wire splice kits. We wrap the wire around the tree and spice it back to itself, then tighten the wire on the far end with a com-along and splicing that end to itself. Makes for a very tight wire and you can tighten it even more with tiebacks. I'll have to make a video showing how we do it.
@@Sawyersmaple thanks for the reply! A video would be great as many producers don’t show it but have something similar. Trees swaying have made it hard to keep it tight as ours is at 30’ up going back about 400ft to the tank. Will try your suggestions this season! Thanks again!
I have found they thaw out pretty quickly. But we will know more this year as we are adding a vacuum monitoring system in the woods. That should give us a better idea as to how much vacuum we have in the sap ladder system and how well its actually working and how long it takes to thaw. From what I have heard from those who have a 5/16 sap ladder, this is better. But not having one myself I do not know that for sure. I have been thinking of adding a line or two of 5/16 just to get more sap lifting at any given time and that should improve vacuum at the ends of those mainlines. There being less sap backed up at the bottom.
I would say 4. This video has given me some ideas as to how to make this better. ua-cam.com/video/ZLnmFfDZCVg/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared So from what I have found out and understand. Lifting sap there will always be a loss of vacuum, the higher you go the more you loose. Ours looses about 6 inches of vacuum. Now the alternative would be to put in a releaser and sap tank and one line that you can turn on to suck the sap out of the tank. I did try a version of this before I went to the spa ladder. All in all, its not a perfect system but it gets sap from trees that otherwise would be more expensive to set up or not get at all.
@@northernwoodsvlogs We have not tried a check valve. It will freeze anytime the temperature drops below freezing anyways. The only way to keep it from freezing would be to make sure its completely drained every day. Sap ladders make for an interesting solution but they come with their own set of problems.
Do you have a per tap ratio for each 3/4” line going up? Do you have a minimum amount of taps before this system would work? Or when would you downgrade to 1/2” line- amount of taps wise I’m running a 1 over one so I don’t want to get into reducing lower then 3/4” but I guess it’s not that big of a deal if I have to
@@gregz4407 I do not have a ratio, we have been figuring this out as we go. Trial and error. lol But it works out to be around 157 taps per 3/4 inch line. Not sure on a minimum number of taps. I guess if you only have a few taps, then it would be easier to go with the 5/16 risers. Always learning something new and we have a couple of things we are going to try this year to see if we can improve performance on the two sap ladders. So a new video on this soon.
@@Sawyersmaple that makes sense- I’m going to try 3- 3/4” lines for roughly 450 taps and then do smaller spider lifters for the smaller sidelines I need to lift- I then have one sideline that has 123 taps so I’ll use a single 3/4” ladder there Do you have a photo of the manifold you set up above the ladder? I’m curious how you tied that all in
Great video Mr. Sawyer! Thanks for posting it. Kevin
Thanks for watching it Kevin! Kurt.
I've heard they have good results with 1/2" risers. I have a needle valve by my ladders that I can crack to allow a little air in if the system is tight.
We have thought about the 1/2 inch pipe for our risers and the valve to let air in. Still experimenting. Keep the ideas coming and we have a few that we are going to try this year.
I have one I lift it 10 feet up over about 30 ft up another 10 ft then it travels all the way to my releaser. Same thing I would have 25 vacuum before the ladder and could only get 18 after it 'with all the leaks fixed drove me crazy for 2 days then a woodpecker pecked a hole in a drop line at the end of my main line I vacuumed shot up to 23. at the very end of my main line I put a saddle and about 3 ft of tubing on it I take my Sharp knife polk a couple pin holes in it I've got figured out how much air to let in so I can get 23 in on the lift side I found I get more vacuum if I let the air and at the very end of the mainline on the ladder side
we put small valves on the end of one mainline per sap ladder and the seams to be working well.
Im glad I have 1000' of elevation drop on our property
Thanks for watching!
Great video! Wondering how you keep tension on your overhead transfer line and lows out of it? We have many low sags in ours and if it goes too tight it blows out of the tree. Do you use high tension cable or aircraft wire? Any tips would be great! Thanks!
We use 9 gauge wire and wire splice kits. We wrap the wire around the tree and spice it back to itself, then tighten the wire on the far end with a com-along and splicing that end to itself. Makes for a very tight wire and you can tighten it even more with tiebacks. I'll have to make a video showing how we do it.
@@Sawyersmaple thanks for the reply! A video would be great as many producers don’t show it but have something similar. Trees swaying have made it hard to keep it tight as ours is at 30’ up going back about 400ft to the tank. Will try your suggestions this season! Thanks again!
Do you think this is better than normal 5\16 sap lifter? Id think these take longer to thaw
I have found they thaw out pretty quickly. But we will know more this year as we are adding a vacuum monitoring system in the woods. That should give us a better idea as to how much vacuum we have in the sap ladder system and how well its actually working and how long it takes to thaw. From what I have heard from those who have a 5/16 sap ladder, this is better. But not having one myself I do not know that for sure.
I have been thinking of adding a line or two of 5/16 just to get more sap lifting at any given time and that should improve vacuum at the ends of those mainlines. There being less sap backed up at the bottom.
I have to lift 800 to 1000 taps up about 15 feet. How many 3/4 lines should i use.
I would say 4. This video has given me some ideas as to how to make this better. ua-cam.com/video/ZLnmFfDZCVg/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
So from what I have found out and understand. Lifting sap there will always be a loss of vacuum, the higher you go the more you loose. Ours looses about 6 inches of vacuum. Now the alternative would be to put in a releaser and sap tank and one line that you can turn on to suck the sap out of the tank. I did try a version of this before I went to the spa ladder.
All in all, its not a perfect system but it gets sap from trees that otherwise would be more expensive to set up or not get at all.
@Sawyersmaple thank you very much.
@@Sawyersmaple Have you tried putting a check valve to help it from draining out and not freezing?
@@northernwoodsvlogs We have not tried a check valve. It will freeze anytime the temperature drops below freezing anyways. The only way to keep it from freezing would be to make sure its completely drained every day. Sap ladders make for an interesting solution but they come with their own set of problems.
@@northernwoodsvlogs Your welcome.
Could you have an air inlet at the ladder and achieve the same thing? We do that with our smaller lifters and it seems to work well
We have thought about putting a small valve that we can open just enough to get the ladder to work better. Its all a big experiment.
Do you have a per tap ratio for each 3/4” line going up?
Do you have a minimum amount of taps before this system would work? Or when would you downgrade to 1/2” line- amount of taps wise
I’m running a 1 over one so I don’t want to get into reducing lower then 3/4” but I guess it’s not that big of a deal if I have to
@@gregz4407 I do not have a ratio, we have been figuring this out as we go. Trial and error. lol
But it works out to be around 157 taps per 3/4 inch line. Not sure on a minimum number of taps. I guess if you only have a few taps, then it would be easier to go with the 5/16 risers. Always learning something new and we have a couple of things we are going to try this year to see if we can improve performance on the two sap ladders. So a new video on this soon.
@@Sawyersmaple that makes sense- I’m going to try 3- 3/4” lines for roughly 450 taps and then do smaller spider lifters for the smaller sidelines I need to lift- I then have one sideline that has 123 taps so I’ll use a single 3/4” ladder there
Do you have a photo of the manifold you set up above the ladder? I’m curious how you tied that all in
@@gregz4407 Where they come into the top pipe, s just a set of 4 Y's that loop down to the bottom of the ladder. One Y for each 3/4.
how many cfm vacuum r u running?
300 CFM and 27-28 inches of vacuum.