Hager City, Wisconsinite Jared Matzek remembers cleaning out the floor of his grain bins last spring. “The sweep was going around, and I had to watch where the cord was the whole time,” he says.
Tired of worrying about that cord, Matzek built a holder for it out of angle iron and a 10-foot-long piece of conduit. Those items happened to be on hand in his shop and so were the three 90-pound magnets he uses to hold it up.
Bolts at the top and bottom of the bracket catch the lip of the grain bin door, which prevents the bracket from bending and keeps it stabilized even under force.
Since the time it was installed, he says he’s spliced an extension cord and put a light switch on it and mounted the switch box to the door side (where the magnets are).
“Now while we’re sweeping, the truck driver can just turn the sweep on and off with the light switch. We don’t have to unplug cords all the time,” he says.
Matzek estimates it would cost around $35 to purchase all the components brand-new.
