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Northern Indiana | I have no clue how you're running an operation that size and getting done with no on farm storage or drying. I'd be in the field until Christmas with that many acres hauling it all to town, I don't mean to sound condescending but I'm surprised you can grow an operation that large and not have much knowledge of grain handling. Impressive.
If you are paying the elevator to dry your corn there are substantial savings for you to own a dryer.
You will not get this project done this summer. Might get a bin or two build, builders schedule is most likely filled out for the year already.
Good advice in the thread. Tall foundations 24-30" above finished grade. Bins in a straight line with unloads facing the same way for easy reclaim to leg. Stairways on bins joining two at a time with catwalk.
At your size you will want/need to go to a leg. Don't have to right away but plan for it. Ideally size the leg to slightly outpace combine capacity if you have the drainage for a large pit. A 1000 bushel pit, 8k bu/hr leg at 120' in a tower with a few downspouts will be a $500k project today by itself.
Leg is helpful because it will let you go to taller bins. Hitting a 48 footer with an auger takes a long stick and the bin won't be too tall. FYI you can raise grain bins later, especially if you plan for it. Lot of work especially if you do it after only a couple years.
42' is probably minimum size for you. 48' or 54' probably make more sense for you. A shot in the dark but a 15 ring 48 footer will probably run you $150-170k right now.
Air system off the dryer works great if the dryer is below 2k bu/hr. Sounds like you will probably want to exceed that so maybe the air system would be a waste of money.
This is why most grain systems are built slowly over time. With your size you can justify quite a bit and this would significantly speed up your operation and show a few places to make some money.
Try to plan the site to have a wet and dry leg, wet bin, dryer, reclaim from bins, and an overhead hopper bin. Piece it together from that, try to plan out as far as you can.
Budget setup would be a 25k bushel wet bin fed with a 12" double run. Pour a small pit with a jump auger yourself to feed it. 10" auger from the wet bin into a continuous flow dryer. 6" air system out of the dryer into 3 48' 15 ring bins. It would take a monster auger to hit those if you wanted to drop dry corn straight in, could build one shorter so that's a possibility for you. Unload with side draws and a short electric auger. All this will probably end up being a million dollar project. Add 3-400k for a big pit and 2 legs instead of augers and air system.
You can run dry corn straight through the dryer and air system to "transfer" but it will be slow and tends to fill the dryer with fines and beeswings that need cleaned out before a refire.
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Starting a grain bin setup from scratch...please advise
