The 2015 season started out with snow and lots of it! We spent the better part of two weekends unburying and re-working our existing 5/16” lateral lines in preparation for our new 1/2” main line and vacuum system.
We ran approximately 250’ of 1/2” main line from our driveway to a 35 gallon collection tank at the low point of our sugar bush.
In addition to adding the main line we figured it was time to invest in a new tubing tool. The shiny new red tubing tool proved to be invaluable, because we basically ended up rerunning all our existing laterals to accommodate the new mail line.
This tool allowed us to easily install the light blue plastic tubing onto the black tubing fittings while securely holding the tubing in place and mechanically forcing the tubing on to each fitting. Previously this was all done by dipping the end of the blue tubing into a boiling hot thermos full of water, which in hindsight was a total debacle!
After connecting each end of the lateral to the tree, we temporarily held them in position at the black 1/2” mainline with some twine. This was temporary until I could cut in a new 4-way tee into the main line.
After running all the light blue laterals we went back and cut in the blue tees and attached the laterals to to the main line.
When everything was connected we took a break for a Dunks medium iced black!
I had to call in reinforcements for tapping the trees.
We still have about 10 trees left to go, but between the weather lately, and all of our other tubing modifications we just have not had time to finish up the rest of the taps.
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