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Leesburg, Ohio | 300K sound very reasonable for such a system as you describe.
Newguys math is how I would do it. Legs are low HP and long-lasting, fairly low maintenance compared to just about any other method of moving grain, the obvious reason most grain gets handled by legs.
With the long life of these systems, you have to do the payoff calculation over a long term, and 30-40 year payback is easy, loan or not.
The hidden benefits of ease of transfer between bins, easy in and out, ease of loadout, using overheads for quick storage when doing a neighbor's custom harvest...the benefits go on and on. Do they produce actual cash??...sometimes yes, sometimes no...but always more convenience and speed.
We used augers for 40 years in our family. Thought legs were too expensive, and our bins were too scattered between farms.
Finally put up our first leg and pit in 2007. Moved existing cf dryer closer to leg, and hopper tank from ground to Lowry overhead structure we purchased and built.
Added bins and upgraded everything in stages over recent years to a setup with three legs, a tower dryer, and converted a 36' 12 ring bin to wet holding, with drags and dedicated wet leg.
Original 4000 bu leg is now dry leg, replacing an air blower. Shorter 8000 bu receiving leg added and bolted to dry leg.
No tower, just cables and anchors...not really in the way of anything.
Our pit is only 200 bu, but it keeps up with a 12 row combine in 250 bu corn using 2 semis, or 3 if hauling from fields over 5 miles away.
Would be nice to add another pit beside existing, so we wouldn't have to move truck to dump back hopper, but that's an old guy talking, and we have no plans to do so.
Also added a 5000 bu/hr leg at soybean bin site.
Main goal was eliminate augers and climbing to change bins twice a day. No problem moving augers in younger days, but I wanted convenience and safety.
Don't use steep augers to load dryer...use a small leg, and feed it with a wet drag.
Do it, and don't look back...you will be glad you did.
Edited by KDD 2/3/2024 14:01
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Justify a Grain Leg
