GC Lacey and Son in Fulbourn, Cambridge, UK, provide bulk storage of rice and other grains for human consumption. Rice is brought from local ports for storage before being forwarded on to processors in the UK.
As they store many different types of rice in their storage facility, it’s very important to avoid cross-contamination.
At the end of each run, it’s therefore essential to thoroughly clean out the base of the vertical elevators located deep in pits in the ground.
They’ve previously used a small industrial vacuum cleaner that lived down the pit to clean the rice up. However, that still left the problem of emptying the machine when full.
The collected rice was tipped out onto the pit floor, shovelled into sacks and then hoisted 30 feet out of the pit on a rope for emptying into waste skips.
Robert Lacey, the owner and operator, told us “it was a very unpleasant, labour-intensive, dusty job that nobody wanted to do”.
Robert Lacey has since installed a static Big Brute Suck & Dump Farm Vacuum Cleaner with cone-hopper, to ensure rapid emptying, with an air-ram bottom-emptying flap.
The Big Brute Suck & Dump has been positioned so that it discharges over the top conveyor belt that delivers the sample into the correct holding bay.
Fixed suction pipe was permanently installed down deep into the pit. The Big Brute Suck & Dump is activated from a switch deep in the pit.
All the rice at the bottom of the pit is sucked up into the high-level Big Brute Suck & Dump.
When completely clean, the operator in the pit presses and holds down an air switch which opens the dump valve on the Big Brute high over the top conveyor. The collected rice is dumped straight onto the running conveyor and is automatically discharged into the correct rice holding bay. The dump valve and the flap high up on the Big Brute slams shut when the air switch is released.
The new centralised Big Brute Suck & Dump system saves Robert Lacey a lot of time in labour, has reduced his waste and has made the whole process safer for his staff as they no longer have to handle heavy waste loads up out of the pits
“Nobody wanted to do this unpleasant job before,” Robert told us, “but now it’s so fast and so simple.”
“It’s improved our housekeeping immensely. After all, we process rice that ends up for human consumption and cleanliness is paramount.”
You can see more on our website about the Big Brute Static Suck & Dump systems.
