weedsportpete
Silver Member
We are thinking of switching our horse bedding from wood pellets to sawdust, and the biggest questions we have are about how to store it, where to store it and how to move sawdust in and out of the storage area. I know there are companies that blow in insulation, and I've heard of one sawdust vendor that 'blows in' the sawdust, but I don't have any details on that. Is it as easy as using a good shop vac with a long hose to move sawdust from one area to another?
We have a threshing barn - the upper, main floor has one large door in the middle of the long side of the barn that you can drive up to (and in) and I'm thinking about storing the sawdust up there somewhere, in a big box built out of plywood. The horse stalls are in the level below; we already have a trap door used to throw down hay bales and bags of bedding, but maybe we'll need another way to get sawdust down.
There is a ventilation shaft (actually there are four in the barn) extending from the bottom floor up through the main floor, up the walls and out the roof (they open up into cupalos(sp?) ), and I though of opening one up and building the sawdust box around that shaft so that the sawdust naturally falls down the shaft - I'd put some kind of door on the bottom that we can open to let sawdust fall out, and then shut when we got enough sawdust to fill a wheelbarrow.
If we built the sawdust container next to the ventalation shaft, the container would not be next to the drive-in door, and unless the sawdust supplier had a blower, we'd have to unload by hand and move it over to the sawdust container (about 15 feet).
If we got a big shop vac and a lot of hose, can we easily move sawdust around such that we would not have to unload it by hand? Is a shop vac and hose suitable for moving sawdust? how long a hose can we use before it gets to be too much to move? Could we use the same setup to move sawdust from the container to our wheelbarrows downstairs? or would blowing into a wheelbarrow be too messy? Maybe just a shute with a door would be good enough, but I"d have to build it.. It would be great if I had a long hose and I could blow it into each stall...! Would that be a commercial machine costing big bucks??
I'll appreciate any responses..
Thanks,
Pete
We have a threshing barn - the upper, main floor has one large door in the middle of the long side of the barn that you can drive up to (and in) and I'm thinking about storing the sawdust up there somewhere, in a big box built out of plywood. The horse stalls are in the level below; we already have a trap door used to throw down hay bales and bags of bedding, but maybe we'll need another way to get sawdust down.
There is a ventilation shaft (actually there are four in the barn) extending from the bottom floor up through the main floor, up the walls and out the roof (they open up into cupalos(sp?) ), and I though of opening one up and building the sawdust box around that shaft so that the sawdust naturally falls down the shaft - I'd put some kind of door on the bottom that we can open to let sawdust fall out, and then shut when we got enough sawdust to fill a wheelbarrow.
If we built the sawdust container next to the ventalation shaft, the container would not be next to the drive-in door, and unless the sawdust supplier had a blower, we'd have to unload by hand and move it over to the sawdust container (about 15 feet).
If we got a big shop vac and a lot of hose, can we easily move sawdust around such that we would not have to unload it by hand? Is a shop vac and hose suitable for moving sawdust? how long a hose can we use before it gets to be too much to move? Could we use the same setup to move sawdust from the container to our wheelbarrows downstairs? or would blowing into a wheelbarrow be too messy? Maybe just a shute with a door would be good enough, but I"d have to build it.. It would be great if I had a long hose and I could blow it into each stall...! Would that be a commercial machine costing big bucks??
I'll appreciate any responses..
Thanks,
Pete