Hi all. A new shell mover to make it easier

[Snowy Rivers]

Getting the nut shells (Our chosen fuel) out of the dumpster we haul them in has always been a challenge up until now.

We did our first load back in October and did it with much manual labor.

After nursing cramping muscles for a day or two I decided that there had to be a better way, but still had no clue as to how.

THEN

I was at the milling machine working on a project and had the large shop vac set up sucking up as much of the chips as possible.

Watching the chips fly up the suck hose sparked an idea.

WHAT IF WE COULD VACUUM THE SHELLS OUT OF THE DUMPSTER AND RIGHT INTO STORAGE BARRELS.

Hmmmmmm

Did some thinking, then looking on the net and found some kits that mounted a shop vac to a barrel.

SPENDY $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Then the idea of making an adapter that would use the vacuum as it is without mods to provide the suction and the storage barrels became a stand alone receiver.

Dug up a piece of plywood and some plastic fittings and did some simple tests.

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.

The idea works great.

Now we can easily transport the shells out of the dumpster and directly into the barrels.

We eliminated 2 major labor intensive steps.

Lifting a 5 gallon bucket multiple times and dumping it in each barrel.
Crawling into the dumpster and moving the shells to the drop gate so they could run out.

Some pix

Initial testing from barrel to barrel to see if the design had possibilities.

The layout when in action for real.
The drop gate open and shells pouring into a 5 gallon bucket and being sucked out and dropped into a 55 gallon barrel.

One real nice perk was that during the transfer process the dust/fines are carried into the shop vac and trapped there to be dumped later.

Since the shells have to be screened before they head up to the stove there is far less dust now to get all over.

 

[Lake Girl]

Looks good Snowy .... what took you so long??? The principle of using the vacuum to load pellets from hoppers is fairly common for the pellet boilers. I know you had to wait for that proverbial light bulb to switch on!

PS ... may have to play around with my pellet set-up for vacuuming out the fines so I no longer have to lift the bags to fill the hopper on that. Mind you the lift does keep the upper body in shape for now... At some point down the road, that may get a little tougher.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Light bulb burned out

Not sure, kept looking at the idea of an auger, but too $$$$$$$$$$$$

Did not want this thing to get into the high budget category as it defeats the entire reason for using the shells.