Thawing the Line

Industrial hair dryer driven by a generator

Most of us who live in the North (and many who live in the South, given the winter we’ve had) have had the experience of thawing a frozen pipe with the help of an electric hair dryer.

This is a picture of the same principle, applied on a somewhat larger scale to a “main line”* in the CE Maple sugarbush.

Though it got fairly warm today – something like 45⁰ F – it was very cold this morning (like 12⁰) and this line runs under the access road…in the shade:  frozen pipe!

The device sitting on the road is a small Honda generator.  The orange cord runs down into the creek bed where the generator is driving an industrial strength hair dryer.  Works like a charm, and the sap is now flowing (gushing, really) into the sugarhouse.

* “main line” is a big pipe into which many, many trees’ tubing empties the sap.  This main line probably serves around 5,000 trees.

-- Bill Clark

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