How To Vacuum Moldy Grain Off Top Of Bin

How To Vacuum Moldy Grain Off Top Of Bin GRAIN HANDLING Miscellaneous 26-6-20 If moldy grain develops at the top of a bin you have two choices - climb up and shovel the bad grain out, or empty the entire bin and mix up the moldy grain with the good. In that case, all your grain may get docked at the elevator. For the past couple years Roy Phillips, Stoughton, Sask., has used a different approach. He connects 10-ft. lengths of 4-in. dia. PVC pipe together much like a silo blower pipe, with a 10-ft. long flexible hose at the top that goes into the fill hole on top of the bin. The bottom end of the pipe hooks up to his pto-operated Rem grain vacuum, which augers the moldy grain into a truck. He uses a truck-mounted cherry picker to set up the big vacuum pipe and the bucket helps hold the pipe in place. "It saves a lot of work and doesn't cost much to set up," says Phillips. "We bought the PVC pipe for less than $100. The first time we sucked moldy grain out of a bin, we threw away 75 bu. As long as grain is dry, the vac will suck it up. The PVC pipe is very lightweight so you can easily handle it with one hand. It takes only about an hour to set up and pull the moldy grain out of a bin. "The vacuum coming off the grain vac holds the pipes tight together. To use this system you need a vac equipped with an exhaust pipe. You can't use a grain vac equipped with a cyclone because all the filth comes out of the cyclone and drops on top of the truck. "The bottom end of the PVC pipe has an elbow that hooks up to a 6-in. dia. hose on the grain vac. I made an adapter to hook the grain vac's hose up to the PVC pipe." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Roy E. Phillips, Box 277, Stoughton, Sask., Canada S0G 4T0 (ph 306 457-2916; E-mail: parryph@hotmail.com).

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