Facility Feature
Evergreen FS Replaces Old Concrete House With Modern Grain Handling Facility

Holder, IL — Sometimes a grain elevator can be like an old article of clothing – it no longer fits and needs to be discarded.

In the case of the Evergreen FS branch elevator at Holder, IL, about 10 miles east of Bloomington, IL, what no longer fit was an old concrete house dating back to the 1950s. More specifically, some modern semi-trucks favored by producers in the area were too large to fit into the enclosed receiving pit that was part of the concrete structure.

In addition, says Grain Department Manager Todd McTaggart, existing grain handling equipment at Holder limited receiving to 38,000 bph.

“It really needed to be upgraded,” says McTaggart, who joined Evergreen in September 2018 after managing another elevator in Illinois.

New wet tank, dryer, screener, legs, conveyors

That upgrade got underway in December 2017. The cooperative hired Lee Farms Excavating Inc., Paxton, IL (217-387-2407), to demolish the concrete structure. That was replaced with a new GSI 250,000-bushel wet tank, a 7,000-bph Zimmerman grain dryer, a 40,000-bph Intersystems screener, and a variety of legs and conveyors designed to speed up the grain handling process and speed up truck traffic through the facility.

Overall contractor and millwright on the Holder project was Grain Flo Inc., Heyworth, IL (800-842-4875). Location Manager Don Kocar, who has been at Holder for 16 years, says Evergreen has a 20-year relationship with Grain Flo that has involved numerous projects. Also involved:

• SKS Engineers, LLC, Decatur, IL (217-877-2100), performed engineering work.
• Wieber Steel Construction, Altamont, SD (605-874-8247), erected the steel tank.
• KDJ Sales & Service Inc., Mackinaw, IL (309-359-3611), served as electrical contractor.
• Peterson Structures LLC, Metamora, IL (309-846-6560), built the Sukup Building Division receiving shed.
• Countryman Construction, Penfield, IL (217-662-6610), did concrete work.

The project was completed Oct. 1, 2018. The cost is confidential.

In part of the space formerly occupied by the concrete structure, Evergreen constructed a 250,000-bushel GSI wet tank standing 60 feet in diameter and 99 feet tall at the eave. The tank has outside stiffeners, flat concrete floor, 12-inch GSI X-Series zero-entry sweep auger, 11-cable Rolfes@Boone grain temperature monitoring system, and level indicators from KDJ.

A set of four Chicago Blower 50-hp centrifugal fans provide 1/6.5 cfm per bushel of aeration. The fans are equipped with silencers.

The tank is filled by an overhead GSI 20,000-bph drag conveyor and empties onto an above-ground GSI 15,000-bph drag. It also has two sidedraw spouts.

Receiving pit feeds GSI 20,000 bph leg

The new enclosed receiving pit holds about a truckload of grain and is serviced by a DAT baffle system for dust control.

The pit feeds a new 20,000-bph GSI leg encased on a 16-foot-x-16-foot-x-185 foot tower fabricated at Grain Flo. The leg is outfitted with a single row of Tapco 20x9 heavy-duty buckets mounted on a 22-inch Continental belt. A new Sidney manlift also is enclosed in the tower.

The leg deposits grain into a three-way valve that can reach the wet tank, an existing rail loadout system, or the new dryer.

An old screener was replaced with a new 40,000-bph Intersystems gravity screener, eliminating a bottleneck.

Replacing two old 3,500-bph dryers is a new 7,000-bph propane-fired Zimmerman tower dryer. The dryer, which is equipped with two Ransome vaporizers, deposits dried grain into a 15,000-bph GSI dry leg running up to existing equipment.

Kocar notes that the elevator now can receive grain at about 60,000 bph. The time required to load 50-car trains has gone from 11 to 13 hours before the project to 7-1/2 to eight hours currently.