Retrofit grain cooling floor

[Spud]

For 30yrs+ we've perservered using pile dry pedestals in our bulk grain store.
It's a 70wide 90 long bulk store split down the middle, with the dryer front centre, and a door to either side of the dryer. This makes it a bit of a chew pushing the heap up, but we manage. There are no overhead conveyors because the shed isn't really high enough for them to work effectively.
Pedestals never very good, for two reasons. I'm not good enough at climbing up the heap to check & move fans often enough, and we haven't an exhaust fan in the shed wall to pull the heat out.
Two years ago we trialled above ground perforated twin wall pipe, with a vertical unperforated at the back of the shed with a fan on top, blowing hot air outside. This has worked much better, particularly now we're controlling them with an old Cropscan 16 controller. The issue is the pipes moving when filling the shed and hitting them when emptying.

Has anyone used Agro-Halse retrofit ducts?

I'm thinking of digging some trenches in the shed floor, and putting some grids on top, and retaining the vertical pipes and fans as they are currently. Then fill the shed ideally with our extendo elevator that we have for potatoes.

Anyone done similar?

 

[Spud]

Anybody any thoughts or experiences?

Thank you

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

Not a retrofit but I can thoroughly recommend the Barn Owl monitoring and control system coupled with underfloor pipes and pedestals in the grain. Fans are at ground level on the outside of the shed, still have to climb the heap to stick the sensors in the corn and there is an annual subscription for the programme.

 

[Khan]

Considered similar on an older store to ease logistics, 90' by 30' round roof built in the 70's for 6 and 8 ton trailers tipping into an auger discharging over laterals. Put off by concern about trying to form 12" ducts into a floor I'm sure is 8" concrete at the max, thinking it is way too much hassle for not a huge amount of benefit, I would like the capability to dry if I was ripping up the floor to install a lot of formwork. Are you just laying twinwall on the floor currently? I noticed Polycool do onfloor laterals with stands when looking for possibilities, would think they might suit loading with elevator a bit more. Still a ballache when emptying.

https://www.evansandpearce.com/grain-store-products/pedestal-ventilation/polycool-laterals/

 

[Nearly]

If you're digging floor then use multiple 8" soil pipe under the floor to sockets in the floor and fit perf twinwall into them when filling.
Put fans outside the building to ventilate
Easier to control and move the fans at 3ft tall.

My grain buyer has them.

 

[Spud]

If you're digging floor then use multiple 8" soil pipe under the floor to sockets in the floor and fit perf twinwall into them when filling.
Put fans outside the building to ventilate
Easier to control and move the fans at 3ft tall.

My grain buyer has them.

I've considered them but think they'll be a pain tbh. Obstacles when filling and emptying, and I don't want the hell that will be digging under a shuttered concrete wall, or trying to vermin proof it afterwards.

 

[quattro]

I use 2 lengths of 450twinwall in 60ft wide sheds with pipes through the back wall of store with fan on outside
Store upto 25ft deep no problem filled with a elevator
Usually put some grain on pipes with loader to stop them moving