Small grain bin setup

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
I have had this little bin sitting around for a few years and thinking of setting it up next month. It is about 5' in diameter and maybe 10-12' high. Cone bottom and stands on 6-8 legs. My one barn has a loading dock on the east end held up with a block wall with good fill. I am going to pour the cap on the dock next month also, currently it is gravel. I look at this bin and think it may hold 150+ bushel but some here would know better than me. I am thinking this is too much weight to just bolt onto a 4" slab and that maybe I should pour supports under the slab, setup the bin, then pour the slab around the legs? Wondering what the experts think?
 
Rough estimate is more than 11,000 pounds not counting the bin. I would put in sonotube footings where the legs will rest (14 inch and 30 inches deep, then put rebar and anchor bolts in one pour of concrete. The top of Sonotubes should be lower than the bottom of the slab base so they will fill easily, and be strong. Putting the bin legs through the slab as in your proposal will cause early failure of the concrete at the metal penetration. It will aso make moving the bin nasty. Jim
 
I put one up for the neighbor. 550 bushel on four legs. I took a hand post-hole-digger and dug down four holes about three and half ft. Pounded a steel t-post in each hole level with top and filled them with concrete. Fastened legs with cement anchors. He fills it with corn and grinds out of it for steers. So it is in constant use. Been 10 yrs and no problems with it settling.
 
As others have suggested, put subgrade pier supports beneath the legs. Put a couple of rebar 1/2 inch bent 90 degrees out of the footing pier to be encased in the flat slab above. If you use sonnetubes might not hurt to put a concrete cookie in the bottom of the hole to increase the dimension of the load bearing surface, as sonnetube gains little sidewall friction, to eliminate possible settling of a pier. Concrete can be placed in a single pour or two separate pours. gobble
 
About 30 years ago i bought a new bulk bin. Think it holds almost 100 bu. Of shelled corn. I dug 4 post holes about 24" deep. Cut the bottoms out of 4 plastic 5 gal buckets. Leveled the tops of buckets. Filled them with sack Crete. Set a bolt in each one. It is still there feed horses from it every morning. But the buckets have cracked and broken, concrete is still good.
 
I think Jim has a pretty good recommendation there. What you have to beware of is where the folks are that have replied. If they don?t have a freeze thaw cycle they can get by with much less such as the dug in buckets filled with concrete. Also general soil type plays a large part in what is needed. However, the spot you chose has probably been undisturbed for years and continually compacted along the way so soil type may not be a huge consideration for your project.
 
I would recommend a footing below frost depth. As for a slab around it that would be asking for trouble when the ground around the edges comes up and snaps it ? Any slab will need to be free floating.
 
Some of all this will depend on your drainage. By a shed should be fairly well drained since one would normally not put a shed at a mud hole. We always just dug a hole deeper than the slab where the legs would be for the support.
A 150 bushel will make a seed or feed storage bin is about all.
 
Did a little research. Had to check on my slide rule to get formula for volume of the cone, which is 1/3 Bh, , where B is the area of the circle & h is the height. Also 1 cubic foot equals 8/10 of a bushel & corn weighs 56 pounds /bushel.
Now to do the work, bin is 5 ft diameter by 10 ft tall. Cone part of the bin is probably 5 ft tall estimate, close enuff.
Pi times radius squared- 2.5x2.5x3.14=19.625 sq ft area of the circle.
19.625 times 5 (height of the cone) divided by 3 (per the formula) = 32.7 cu ft volume of the cone.
19.625 times 10 (height of the cylinder) = 196.25 cu ft volume of the cylinder.
volume of the cone plus the cylinder = 228.9 cu ft.
228.9 times .8 =183.1 bushel.
183.1 times 56# =10256.97 pounds corn. Hope my calculations are correct.
The 11000 # estimate mentioned below is close enough.
Hope this helps.
Will leave the concrete requirements to someone more expert in that field.

Willie
 
With bins like that, we lag bolted the 4 legs to 6 inch by 6 inch pressure treated wooden beams and buried them 6 inches deep. Never a problem lifting even here in cold country.
Ben
 

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