Production Blog
Dan Davidson DTN Agronomist

Wednesday 11/18/09
Whew

Our stirator has given us fits the past two weeks and we have the same batch of corn in the same bin for nearly two weeks. The moisture has dropped from 26 down to 20 with the assistance of heated drying.

But the stirator must have quit twelve times in 10 days and the electrician replace switches and this and that several time over and it keeps breaking down. Last Saturday it quit again after running for less than two days and we couldn’t get it running again.

So I bite the bullet and ordered a new one from a Sukup dealer and they told me to expect it probably the day before Thanksgiving. I couldn’t imagine not combining corn for two weeks in November with time running out. But I swallowed the bitter pill and decided to wait.

But I got lucky and dodged the bullet when the dealer told me it was being shipped today (Wednesday) and we could pick it up tomorrow at Sukup warehouse in Aurora, Nebraska. A week earlier than projected.

The stirator should be at the farm on Thursday and then on Friday we set up scaffolding and take down the old run and put up the new one.

By this weekend we should be combining corn again.

Whew that was close.

Posted at 2:37PM CST 11/18/09 by Dan Davidson
Comments (4)
Stirators - love them or hate them. I hate checking my bins fearing one isn't working
Posted by Unknown at 4:46PM CST 11/20/09
just wait till you have a bin fire it will happen we had it happen from a bad limit switch on the heater that the dealer installed
Posted by Unknown at 6:33AM CST 11/22/09
I did not know what I was thinking when I took on the job of replacing the stirator. First I had to find and erect a scaffolding. Then it took me 3 hours on Saturday to take down the old one. Then on Sunday we planned to install the new one. But after 4 hours, we only got 70 percent done without the wiring. The new stirator came in several boxes of parts that had to be sorted and understood. It turned out to be a much bigger job to install then I had anticipated. I figured the dealer would bill me a day's labor to have two guys come out and install, maybe $1,500 or more. That seems expensive but it would have taken the headache off me. But maybe then didn't have the manpower to get it done right now anyhow.
Posted by Daniel Davidson at 8:00AM CST 11/23/09
Dealer told me this morning it would have cost me $800 to $1,000 to have them bring a scaffolding, tear down the old one, install the new one and wire it in. Why or why didn't I do that? Guess I wanted to save a few bucks but in the end it will probably take 4 days to get it going.
Posted by Daniel Davidson at 9:54AM CST 11/23/09
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