You do not crawl into a harvestore, because their is no oxygen inside a sealed silo. The harevstore maintenance people open a door at the bottom and use cable weches to pull the unloader out of the silo. This done whenever there is a machical failure of the unloader or when you switch from short arm to the long arm of the unloader. Harvestor bottom unloaders have two chains, a cutter chain, and a conveyor chain. The cutter chain cuts or digs the silage free from its very packed state and delivers the silage to the center of the silo, and then the silage drops into a gutter, which is where the conveyor chain is. Here the conveyor chains brings the silage out of the silo. The breathing system is used to compensate the change in air pressure that takes place inside of the harvestor as the outside air temperature changes. Without a breathing system, the harvestor would leak air, thus spoiling the silage.
also, everyone in my area has given up on the expensive cost to maintain/fix/replace harvestore unloaders, so we all hired an amish crew that puts a chute on the harvestores and cuts doors in it so we can put ring drive unloaders or big jims in them. first guy did it 12 years ago and we thought he was nuts...now we allllll have them and wish we'd done it sooner. like i said, it's all a matter of preference and availability. but i'll stand and swear by my stave silos ;) keep up the good work!
One thing worth mentioning is a continuation of what you said happened to your neighbors. Not too far from me there is a farm that had to tear down two Harvestores because the "bags" in one Harvestore failed & made it collapse and fall into the other. We have two Harvestores and one cement block silo on our farm, but no longer use the Harvestores due to maintenance costs.
I seen that video too and some similar articles. You likely don't want to put stuff that is still wet inside the silo and you want to make sure you don't try to overload it either. Yeah repairing the Harvestores can be expensive but the good part about the Harvestores that I read, you wouldn't have to deal with as much food losses than you would in a concrete stave silo. Sometimes in severe bad weather, the tops of the concrete stave silos get collapsed or damages. I seen quite a few of them with missing tops. Hopefully your cement stave silo will last for a while for you. you might want to save money on repairing or improving your Harvestore silos.
Not all silo's had tops on them. It is an option, and does help preserve both forage and unloader. The Harvestore is based on limiting oxygen to the feed , where typically other silo's have the top face exposed to air. Both require a lot of management skills, as well as maintaining the unloading equipment. Bunker storage is replacing upright silo's on large operations, and covered piles and Ag Bags are more useful on smaller operations. Less capital expenses for the latter.
Maintenance is key with a Harvestore unloader, you can't let everything fall apart and expect to not have a dig-out. The chains need to be tight, oiled, and in good shape, hooks replaced when necessary, floors (especially welded steel floors) inspected at least once a year. If you replace your steel floor with a poured one go with the Gran-L-lite instead of the epoxy, it's harder, more durable. I've fixed many grooves worn in epoxy floors by the wheel on the end of the arm with Gran-L-lite. Replace the backbone and arm when they get thin, a good service technician will let you know when they are getting thin, we are not real excited about climbing in the crown under tons of silage with breathable air in order to remove worn out unloaders piece by piece. I never liked climbing in them when they are on fire either, too dang hot! If you are going to fill one and not use it for a while you may want to consider pulling the unloader until you are going to use it, silage is very corrosive, especially corn silage. Don't try to save a couple hundred bucks by not short arming, it seldom works. If you are lucky you may be able to fight the arm to the door or at least back past center so we can pull it out with the arm back.
and i also forgot to mention that the stave silos can be shot creted inside and out, to prevent leaks...thus making them (with the exception of the roof) tighter than a harvestore.
nice video, would it be possible to get a video of the harvestore silo running? i.e. the feed coming out? Is the harvestore unloader faster than the top unloader? How often have you had problems with the harvestore unloader? thanks
Good video. We have wireless gear mounted on top of one of those harvestores here in Canada. The climb is awesome. You should take your camera to the top next time!
there's actually something you missed in this vid tho boss: stave silos (and the poured concret ones) can be top OR bottom unloading; and harvestores can be top unloading...just depends on what you prefer, what the company in your area has to offer, and what "aftermarket companies" are out there that retrofit silos. for example, we have a stave that somebody on the farm before us put some funky bottom unloader in. we hate it and are puttin a valmetal ring drive in.
im from orkney isls north of scotland thanyyou for the post this is just so interesting the tower silo is just so much more quality does no one out there work the suction system the nuero suck blow system interesting that most of the comments favoured the concrete silo !
The concrete block silos last a hell of a lot longer and are a hell of a lot cheaper to fix. We got 2 with James way unloaders that we have had sencie 1971 and they still go strong plus they still sell parts for them.
you guys should try to find the book called "the winning system" it's a promo book given out by the harvestore dealers in the 60's. talks about how the first harvestore silo came about when a farmer visited the A.O.Smith factory and saw a brewer's tank being made and commented that it would be neat to have a silo made like it....
Harvestores don't work for lazy people, you have to maintain them and keep the doors closed when not feeding, and you can't put crap in them and expect to get great feed out of them.
Hi , i saw your video and i got very curios about your silos . Is there any chanche you can explain me in details how the "breathing system" is working ? And what the breathers bags are used for ? Inside only air or nitrogen ? Looking forward to hearing from you i remain
Around where I live a silo plant and closed in lord knows when and is abandoned to this day walls are made of 8 inches thick and 100 to 150 foot tall 6 at each plant and there are three of them. Augers and grain legs are even taller. Silos are closed and no one has been there ever since
so with all the problems with the steel harvestors why do u like them so much? i had concrete silos with both top and bottom unloaders growing up and had very little issues with them. the neighbors with the steel harvestors always had issues. not to mention a concrete silo isnt going to cave in like a dam pop can just because the unloading is uneven... what a major design flaw on the harvestors!
How Farms Work how are they less dangerous? back up the claims u make... the concrete silos we had didnt require any special treatment... harvestors seam like a high maintenance girl... do they preserve the feed better??? i dont believe so. cheaper to build?
Less dangerous as you are less apt to fall inside or out while changing silo doors, harvestores really only need to be climbed when you're filling them, and they're pretty low maintenance, just expensive to have work done to them due to their design. You don't have to climb inside to level the top of the silage. Bottom line is that you don't have to unsafely climb in a harvestore as often like you would a concrete silo. Even when work is being done on the unloader of a harvestore, most times all it takes is jacking the entire unloader out of the harvestore rather than enter it. Less spoilage because you're using an in first out first method rather than in first out first method like with a concrete silo. They're sealed to further reduce spoilage unlike concrete silos which always have the top layer exposed and rely on the silage exposed to the air to keep the rest underneath from spoiling which even then isn't guaranteed that it won't spoil. Since harvestores use the FIFO method, you can go lengths of time without feeding without developing a hard packed layer inside the harvestore like you would a concrete silo. Top unloading silos have the advantage of unloading faster though, which I like. We've easily had 20x the problems with the concrete silos than the harvestores but like I said, the harvestores just cost more to have work done to.
How Farms Work wrong. educate yourself on all of the concrete silo options... they make just as many sealed ones as non sealed. we had 3 sealee concrete with bottom unloaders on our farm. u dont have to buy a steel harvestor to get a sealed silo... so again your arguement of harvestors being more safe doesnt hold up. i would say they r less safe... never seen a concrete silo crumple like a pop can... or fall over in a 50mph wind... saw harvestors do both growing up.
Yeah they did do better in cold climate but there are 1 maybe 2 guys that still run them as harvestores but the rest are converted and you can go anywhere without seeing them
Not to mention, I'd MUCH rather climb up into a top unloader to repair or just get unstuck the unloader, than to have to deal with a busted bottom unloader in a full silo. There's a LOT of weight hanging over your head!! That, and if the unloader is truly fubar-ed, you can still pitch it out by hand. With a Harvestore, you're pretty much fucked.
somebody needs to do a computer animation of what the frick is happening with silos, I still dont get it, I do get that when organic matter is confined, when the oxygen is used up, the remainder is preserved similar to canning.
