I've been wanting more ibc totes but there is a few problems I have been running into; 1) Too expensive. Some want $100 ea. 2) Too far. 100+ mi one way. 3) Totes are too small. I like the 330 gallon totes. 95% of the totes I find are 275 gal. 4) What to do with the bladders. I don't need covers for the totes since I keep the wood in a carport b4 I burn in the owb. I thought about buying some 275 gal and cutting 1 horizontally into 5 pieces. Problem is I'd buy 6 and after cutting and welding I'd end up with 5. Also what to do with the bladders? After a lot of head scratching I finally was blessed with the answer. Use the bladders as the extentions!!! Started by pullin the bladders and cuttin an opening in the tote cages. Put the bladders back in to mark them for cutting.
The plastic bladder was no match for the battery powered saw. I left some of the rounded top as a sort of gusset to prevent the sides from folding over. I screwed the bladder to the cage to hold it on place. Then drilled holes for air flow. I figured round holes would help keep it strong. As opposed to square holes.
Hmm I like this idea as I have the same problem and don’t want to double stack them with kids around.
Success!!! The top of the bladder is about 66 inches high and holding strong. Idk if anyone has done this before. But it seems to work ok. After measuring, each tote should hole about 65 cu.ft or a little over half a cord.
Same issues down here south of you. And I have yet to find one that was food grade and not chemicals. I wanted an elevated one to gravity water plants, it still smelled like chemicals after pressure washing it a couple times. Very cool idea for extend your stacks.
I put the bladders on a pallet and fill them with wood just as I would the cage themselves. I do store them out of the weather though. If that's not an option for you, lots of hole should get you enough ventilation and drainage.
Great idea! I'd bet that most people would want to leave the top on the bladder for roof coverage...but hey, since you don't need it... I do wonder if the front will spread over time, with stacking so high, and all but one of the cross bars cut out...if you left 2 (or 3) in there it would be a lot stronger, and still allow access to the wood in the bottom, at least for anyone over 5'
I like how after you let the brain marinate on the idea for a while you came up with a solution that looks like it will work for you. Almost lemonade out of lemons.
I had the same concern but I've been using totes for many years with only one bar at the bottom and have not had any issues. I've even used the skid loader to (gently) load the totes. The advantage of leaving a single bar is that it's easier to step into, when grabbing the last few pieces. Plus the cut outs are longer so my plan was to weld 3 cut outs onto a tote to make it taller. The only time I had an issue with spreading is when I accidentally cut thru one extra of the vertical bars on the open side of the tote. I figured I'd leave it but it began moving quickly and I had to bend and weld it back together. I'll try to post a pic tomorrow. I really appreciate your input, bouncing ideas off people helps us to think and design and refine a project.
I got the steel extensions fabri-cobbled today. Basically it takes 3 cutouts to make an extension on 1 tote. I used the bars that hold the bladder in (on the top side) to fill the gaps between the extensions. Since I'm all about Aesthetics I painted it with the prettiest paint i have.... primer. A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't. Lol. This one is taller because the cutouts were wider. I made sure the welder was set hot enough by burning a bunch of holes.
The difference beteeen the 275’s and 330’s is negligible. Only a 6” height difference, which equates to a 6.66 cubic foot difference, or one single wheel wheelbarrow.
Valid point, the actual difference is 8 inches (the ones I have anyways). So the difference is 7.7 cu ft Now with the extensions, if my math is right (measured the I.D. of the cage) they should come out to about 64.5 cubic feet for the larger tote I made. Which would be an addition of 26 cu. ft. 40 inch tote≈38.5 cu. ft. 48 inch tote≈46.24 cu. ft. 63 inch tote≈60.7 cu.ft. 67 inch tote≈64.5 cu.ft So basically the tote went from less than 1/3 of a cord to just over half a cord.
