“When we finish, it looks like there was never anything there,” Rickert commented. He then fills the area where the silo once stood with dirt. Rickert removes the staves from the work site and brings the material to Knife River Corporation in Glencoe or Hutchinson, where the concrete is broken down and recycled. How the material is dealt with after demolition varies, as well. “Sometimes, we just use a sledge hammer,” he added. “It’s like tipping a tree, it depends on the area and the structure,” Jay Rickert of Rickert Excavating said. “We can take them down either way, from the top or bottom,” Hanson commented. There are a few different methods for demolishing concrete stave silos some companies will pull from the top some push from the bottom and some pull on the metal bands that stabilize and help hold the staves in place. ![]() “The repair side has been quite busy this month, also,” he added. Hanson Silo Company of Lake Lillian has built about five new concrete stave silos this year, which cost about $35,000 each, according to Hanson. That number is a drastic drop from the nearly 36,000 silos that were in use in the state less than 90 years ago. “Out of more than 4,000 dairy farms in the state, probably about 2,000 still have concrete stave silos in use for high-moisture silage,” Hanson Silo Company Director of Business Development Mike Hanson stated. Many landowners repurpose the staves for landscaping, some convert their silo for dry grain storage, and a few remodel or repair the silo for its originally intended purpose. ![]() ![]() Recent trends toward bunker or flat-style storage has left these iconic landmarks in the dust. Cement stave silos have towered over the Minnesota landscape since 1905, and at one point were the most commonly-built silo type in the state.
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