Preventative Maintenance recommendations Gateway FS Construction Services

The Importance of Pre-Harvest Maintenance Recommendations

Somehow, this year has flown by and it’s already September, which means it’s time to make sure that all of your grain drying and handling equipment is ready for the harvest. We’ve been around long enough at FS Construction Services to know how tempting it is to avoid the upfront cost or hassle of pre-harvest maintenance, but we also know how much time, money, and inconvenience it can save you down the road. A little money to prevent a problem in September is significantly better than having to fix a broken piece of equipment in the middle of harvest.

You may already know if your system or equipment is experiencing difficulty or is in need of maintenance. If you’re not sure, however, it’s worth asking yourself a few questions. Is your grain drying unevenly? Did you experience any mold or spoilage after last year’s harvest? Have your structures been subject to severe weather or wear? Have you had high-moisture crops or been running out of room to store your grain? If so, it may be time for some preseason maintenance.

If your systems are in need of repair or you just want to head into harvest with confidence, our Grain Systems Specialists will be more than happy to help. Our service technicians are highly trained and experienced, so whether it’s catching problems before they begin or diagnosing current issues, they will work to ensure your grain systems are ready to run strong through the entire season.

If you are in the market for new or upgraded grain storage, grain drying, grain handling equipment or agricultural structures, please let Gateway FS Construction Services know. Give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

Gateway FS Construction Services harvest safety tips

Safety Reminders for Harvest

It’s no secret that harvest time is a busy season for farmers. No matter how prepared you are, there bound to be some long days and long nights. At FS Construction Services, we understand the desire to get just one more thing done before calling it day, we also understand just how incredibly important farmers are. So, because it’s really in everyone’s best interest, we’ve put together a quick list of safety reminders to keep in mind if you’re going to be out there this harvest.

  1. Get Rest. We know there are going to be sometimes when a full night’s sleep just isn’t going to happen. So make sure you take the necessary steps to keep yourself as rested an energized as possible. Drink lots of water, and, if you’re going to be away from home for long stretches at a time, bring snacks. If you can’t give your body the sleep it needs, be sure to give it the food and nutrition it needs to carry you through.
  2. Take Breaks. Give yourself a fifteen-minute break from time to time. Again, we know much of harvest season is one giant time crunch, but as best as you can, plan ahead and carve out a little time for yourself here and there, especially if you’re going to spend long hours alone.
  3. Keep in Touch. Speaking of being alone, make sure someone knows where you plan to be throughout the day and keep them updated or ask them to check in on you.
  4. First Aid Kid. No one likes to think about it, but accidents do happen. Keep a first-aid kid in as many vehicles as you can, just in case. The Mayo Clinic also recommends having a tourniquet on hand as well, just in case an injury does happen and you are alone or far from help.
  5. Preventative Maintenance. Check the state of your equipment regularly. Clean, well-maintained equipment is far more predictable and safe than the opposite. For more information, take a look at our recent preventative maintenance blogs.

As obvious as these are, we all know how easy it can be to want to cut corners or push ourselves a little too hard in high-stress times. Please take care of yourselves this harvest, and we wish you a successful season. As always, if you have grain storage and handling or seed treatment needs or questions, please feel free to reach out to Gateway FS Construction Services. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

Gateway FS Seed Systems preventative maintenance

Seed System Preventative Maintenance #3: Call Us in a Crunch

Well, summer is over and we are in the middle of harvest season. We hope that you were able to get any seed system maintenance you needed taken care of and it’s all smooth sailing from here on out. However, we know that, despite all the best efforts and intentions, sometimes things just go wrong. To help out, here is our third and final round of FS Construction Service’s preventative maintenance articles for your seed treatment system.

While technology is amazing, and seed treatment has become an art of repeatable, computational precision, there are always going to be things that are simply out of our hands. We’ve been in the game long enough to know we have to respect, and be prepared for, the unpredictable. So we’ve come up with a few ways that we can be as ready as possible should a problem with your seed treater arise.

  1. We keep ourselves well stocked with a vast number of different parts. Sometimes the smallest thing can cause the biggest problems, so we keep a lot of seed system replacement parts on hand in case of an emergency.
  2. We have a dedicated USC technician on staff. He knows this equipment inside and out and is quick to not only diagnose a problem but pinpoint its solution as well.
  3. We focus on service. We make it a point to get to our customers as quickly as possible, so they can be up and running as soon as possible.

All of these things came into play recently when a pump board when out on a seed treater in Kentucky. The cause: not a faulty part or bad operation, but a power surge thanks to a lightning strike. To ensure our client could get back to work quickly, our service technician met him halfway with the needed replacement, so he could get his system running again within the day.

We’ve been doing this long enough to know that it always pays to be prepared. Whether you’re getting your system checked and cleaned before harvest, or you find yourself in a sudden bind, we are there for you. We hope this series on preventative maintenance has been helpful, and as always, if you have any questions about our seed system services, please feel free to reach out to Gateway FS Construction Services. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

Gateway FS Construction Services grain systems preventative maintenance

Preventative Maintenance #3: General Grain System Maintenance

Here we are, at the third and final installment of our FS Construction Service’s preventative maintenance articles. That also means that summer is long gone, and we are now all the way in on harvest season. While we have previously discussed grain drying, storage bin, and bucket elevator maintenance, we are going to finish by going over some general preventative maintenance points.

First off, at FS Construction Services our goal is always to help our customers. When it to comes grain systems, there are lots of things that can go wrong or prevent your system from working the way it should. We always suggest, in the event of improperly working or broken equipment, that you give us a call first. There are certain problems and instances where we are able to guide our customers over the phone to help them fix the issue themselves, which saves them both time and money. While we are happy to replace parts and/or equipment, we are happiest with satisfied customers.

We have professionals on staff who deal with both mechanical and electrical issues when it comes to grain systems maintenance and support. Regardless of your issue, our goal is to keep any down time to a minimum. For instance, here are a few scenarios we’ve recently encountered.

  1. We conduct maintenance on a number of stirring machines made as far back as the 1960s which are still in use, but, unsurprisingly, they’re a little different from the modern machines. However, we are able to both fix and/or retrofit these old machines to get them working like new.
  2. Another issue we deal with is covering or overfilling the stirrer with grain. It’s tempting, we know, to try and get as much done in one go as possible, but it can cause some major headaches down the road.

So whether you’ve run into one of the issues above, or have had an entirely different set of problems with your grain system, please feel free to reach out to Gateway FS Construction Services. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

Gateway FS Construction Services seed systems preventative maintenance

USC Seed Systems Preventative Maintenance Blog: 2 of 3: Increase Accuracy and Save Money

Welcome to the second round of FS Construction Service’s seed system preventative maintenance articles. Like we said before, a little maintenance can go a long way when it comes to keeping your seed treatment systems effective and operational, and our goal is to give you the information you need to keep your equipment in the best shape. What follows is a description of the service you receive when an FS service professional comes out to take your seed system through the preventative maintenance process.

One of the wonderful things about seed treatment systems is their precision. Knowing that you can program and produce an identical dressing for seed year after year that can be applied consistently and evenly each time brings with it some serious peace of mind. However, none of that happens by accident. Thanks to the advancement in seed system technology and automation, the margin for error has decreased significantly. Obviously, automatic systems sound wonderful, but it’s also no surprise that we have found there are a number of manual seed systems still out there.

Brand-new equipment is expensive, we get that. That’s why our Seed Treating Solutions experts retrofit older treaters with automation upgrades. Our team can perform recommended maintenance and upgrades on any USC treater to turn previously manual processes to automatic processes. Most commonly what this means is that we will add a seed wheel system to keep you at your desired rate of flow and level of seed treatment. However, there are other simple ways to upgrade additional processes that are not only low cost, but can increase the accuracy of your system’s chemical delivery by 99.95%.

So, if you’re still using a manual seed system and aren’t yet ready for a whole system upgrade, let FS Construction Services know. We can inspect your equipment and determine ways we can make your job easier and your product more consistent.

To schedule maintenance, or get answers about maintaining or upgrading your seed system, reach out to Gateway FS Construction Services. You can give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.

FS Construction Services grain systems preventative maintenance

Preventative Maintenance #2: Six Key Bucket Elevator Problem Areas

Welcome to the second round of FS Construction Service’s preventative maintenance articles. Our team of experts cannot stress enough how, a little maintenance can go a long way when it comes to keeping your systems effective and operational, and our goal is to give you the information you need to keep your equipment performing as expected. What follows is a description of the service you receive when an FS Grain Systems professional comes out to take your system through our multi point preventative maintenance process.

When it comes to grain systems, you need every piece and part working and moving effectively. The sheer volume of material any grain system must move or hold is staggering, and there’s simply no way to recreate those operations without properly working equipment. There are few ways this is more apparent than with bucket elevators. Making sure your bucket elevators are well maintained in the offseason is a great way to prevent future headaches and costly holdups.

Whether this is a task you want to take on yourself, or you want an idea of what our Grain Systems experts will be looking for when they inspect your grain system, the following list of preventative bucket elevator maintenance may sound simple, but the benefits are far reaching. In general, the most important things to check for are:

  1. Belt tension, alignment and tracking
  2. Loose or missing buckets
  3. Worn or improperly working distributor
  4. Loose or sagging trussing on downspouts
  5. Stable placement and footing
  6. And, unpleasantly, animals stuck inside the machinery (we previously had a farmer report raccoon damage, so you never know).

Has it been a few years since your system has been checked? Scheduling a safety review would be a smart call. Our team is ready to come to your site and work through our checklist of bucket elevator maintenance to ensure your season has fewer hiccups (and raccoons). This season spend less time fixing problems and more time getting work done.

If your goal is to have a worry-free harvest reach out to the service professionals at Gateway FS Construction Services and ask about our preventative maintenance services. Or you can always give us a call at 866-551-3454, and let our specialists help you find exactly what you are looking for. We look forward to providing you the best customer service experience.