Going Up: Building Our New Grain Bin, Part 1

We decided to put up a new grain bin to expand our on-farm storage options. We already had 3 smaller grain bins on the farm, which were set up to dry and store some of our corn. Unfortunately, the storage capacity wasn’t that great and we usually had to haul the corn to the granary as soon as it was dry. The additional storage will give us a little more control over when we sell the grain and, hopefully, the price.

Because it is actually cool to see how the structure is put together and built, I’m presenting it here. Putting up the grain bin took several steps, which I have broke out into several posts.

Part 1: Selecting the Site and Laying the Foundation

The first thing to do was select the site for the grain bin and prepare the area. We chose this location based on the soil (that corn field is pretty wet) and proximity to the grain dryer. Once the site was chosen, we had to bring in quite a bit of dirt and level it out. You can see in this picture that we brought in a bit extra so the concrete crew would have some extra dirt to work with.

The crew used some of the extra dirt that we brought over to build up the area where the concrete foundation was going to be placed.

The concrete guys created a compacted circle area of dirt, digging around the sides, to create the dirt base for the concrete.

A wooden wall was constructed around the outside to form the mold of the platform. There was also rebar put into place to help strengthen the concrete.

Then the concrete trucks started arriving. In total, it took 9 truck loads of concrete to form the base.

First the outer ring was filled in with concrete.

Next, the center of the foundation was filled in.

Finally, the entire concrete slab was smoothed out.

Once the guys were done, the concrete slab actually sat for about 3 weeks before the workers came to put up the roof and walls. By the time they arrived, the concrete was nice and hard and ready for them.

Next up is Part 2, which shows how the grain bin went from a concrete slab to an actual structure with a roof!