Moving flat bottom bins

[grefer]

I emailed a bin mover this week about moving three bins. One has steel bottom 2 with wood. They emailed back and said they dont haul flat bottoms any more because of liability issues. Anyone know what makes them a bigger liability than hoppers unless maybe the floors fell apart on route.

[Oliver88]

Interesting, the bin with the steel floor should be fine to move, I’d check with another mover.

[burnt]

What diameter bins are they?

[Partners]

When we sold the last of our flat bottoms a few yrs ago..the mover made a spreader bar to keep the bin in shape.they were on cement so he moved them with no floors.

[grefer]

What diameter bins are they?

Two are 19 and one is 14 ft diameter. Every day small bins.

[burnt]

Two are 19 and one is 14 ft diameter. Every day small bins.

We moved a couple of 19s, 8 rings high (20'), from 3 miles away to here a number of years ago.

Took the full aeration floor and unloading augers out, picked it up with a mid-sized boom truck. A buddy who had a concrete forming business came and did the lifting with his form-hauling truck.

Set the whole bin on one wagon, split it between the 6th and 7th rings and set the top 2 rings and roof onto another wagon.

Picked the top section off the wagon here, set it back onto the lower section. Bolted it together, picked the whole bin up and set it off onto the pad.

Repeat with #2.

Reinstalled floors, all done in about 2 days. Taking floors out and back in was about the most time consuming.

If you don't have overhead wires or other height restrictions to contend with then you don't even have to split them.

We picked them up by dropping the cable down through the center hole in the roof, run the cable through the center of a 15 or 16 inch wheel (as in spare pickup tire, fully inflated) and stick a thick bar through the eye on the end of the cable and pick it up by the roof. Worked like a charm.

Clear as mud?

It would be so slick if you didn't have to split them because of their height. Just a couple hours to load and move a bin. I think we ran a 2x6 or something up the front of the roof to slide any low branches up and over.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I've moved 5 rings by the same method as Burnt, just pick them onto a very low slung trailer. Towed behind a tractor so it is farm machinery. Without floors I lift by the roof like Burnt suggests, with floors, need lots of blocks and jacks to lift the entire thing up. and roll the trailer under. Might be able to move taller bins but would require the power company to tag along and lift lines.