Using my 420 to take down a silo

[H Barnes]

We had some fun a couple of weeks ago. We demolished our little 40' cement stave silo. We looped cables through 3 holes I had knocked out on the north side. It took a few tugs but I was able to pull out staves about a third of the way around. Unfortunately it still stood. I cut a few more bands and we hooked a chain around one of the door frames on the east side. One tug on that chain and down she went, all in a 20' pile.
I posted a video of this on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyEkixpQ1U

[Scottyb]

I have to admit that was interesting but, I think it was far too dangerous. I could hardly watch.

Scott

[Lavoy]

Very good friend of our family was going to take a silo down one time. He walked up and hit a stave with a sledge hammer, and one of the staves from farther up fell down and hit him on the head. He was very lucky, he survived with no long term effects, but could have been much worse.
Best way to take down a stave silo is shoot them down, you can't believe how much fun it is.
Lavoy

[H Barnes]

Thanks for the concern but I took the demolition of the silo very seriously. We used 60' of cable/chain for a 40' silo. There was always someone watching the silo closely when anyone was near it. Whenever we pulled on the silo no one was within 50' of it. The one neighbor wanted to knock a few more staves out when it did not fall the first time but I put a stop to that. We then connected the chains to the bottom door frame and I cut 2 more bands. You can see that I paused after cutting the first one. I was listening in case some shouted a warning. Then when everyone was out of the way I pulled on the door frame which brought the silo down. It was surprising how strong the old silo was. It had been spray coated on the inside with 2” of concrete.
The week before I watched about 20 YouTube videos showing people taking down silos and some of them were very scary, especially the one with two old Amish farmers taking one down using only sledge hammers. It was interesting to see the ones where they shot out the staves but I don’t think my little 22/410 over/under would have done much good. I guess I could have borrowed something bigger from the retired sheriff who lives down the road.
The most important preparation for this according to my wife was making sure I was up to date on the payments on my life insurance policies.

[JD440ICD2006]

I believe I speak for everyone when I say that I am glad that you did not get hurt or worse.
We never had those type of silos and I have never taken one down so I have zero experience.
I have, however, taken down many trees of all sizes around the property. I can tell you that I am confident, but found out that even the best laid plans can go wrong.
We were taking down an oak that was about 70 feet tall. We did "everything" right. No wind, we cut a wedge on the side to fall, we had one person one each side out away from the tree watching. I ran the saw and just as it began to fall, I pulled the saw out, shut it off, turned and tripped over a limb that I did not see. As I was falling, I threw the saw away from me. I was lucky that the tree did not kick back or buckle back in my direction. If it had done that, someone else may be telling this story.
I am just saying that things do happen, and I could see potential peril in the video.
Thanks for sharing, is that the last silo?

[digitup2]

We have too many of those cement stath or slab silos in Ontario and half of them are rotten at the bottom .We take several down a year .The way we do it is take a 550 with the winch and choker it around between the binding rings [using baler twine to hold the cable up in between rings till it tightens then get as far away as you can ac a nearly empty drum is more powerful any way .Then winch in and it will all fall in a small pile leaving the roof intact .Digitup.