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November 06, 2019

Bins vs silos: Which is the best storage solution for your raw materials?

by Rebecca Sherratt, Features Editor, Milling and Grain

In Milling and Grain magazine we work together with a great number of companies each month to provide our readers with the latest information regarding how to get the most out of your storage facilities. We have worked extensively with storage companies to establish the do’s-and-don’ts of how to care for your raw materials and yet, when you go back to the basics, there are still a lot of fundamental questions that need answering.

Yes, there is a great deal to think about in regard to what specific type of silo or grain bin you need- but first things first- how do you know whether you want a silo or a grain bin? Which of these solutions will best suit your own unique needs?
 

To understand which solution works best for you, let us first establish what each solution offers consumers:

Silos
Probably the more familiar of the two solutions to most individuals, silos are tall, slender constructions with domed rooves that hold moisture and raw materials together in a very tight seal. Keeping the materials in complete quarantine, a silo’s intended purpose is to prolong the lifecycle of the materials.

These constructions have been a necessity of food production since as far back as the eighth century in Ancient Greece, the word silo (formerly ‘siros’) literally translating in Greek to ‘pit for holding grain’. The first wooden grain silo that can be seen as an influence for the very models we use today was invented in 1873 by Mr Fred Hatch in Illinois, USA.

Silos are employed for a range of bulk materials including grain, wheat, silage, sawdust, woodchips, coal and cement to name a few. Standard storage silos usually range in size between 30-275ft in height and 10-90ft in diameter and are built with wooden staves, concrete staves, steel panels and/or cast concrete.

To unload your silo of contents, farmers typically utilise unloaders, but this is a notoriously tricky business. Emptying a silo completely, in order to give it its recommended two-to-three annual cleans, is never a simple task and build-up of encrusted materials can be difficult to manage in such a lofty, thin structure.


Read more HERE.
 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


For additional daily news from milling around the world: global-milling.com

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