Keeping the harvest wheels turning

Part of my installation work is farming equipment. I enjoy this work as I love being out in the countryside and it makes a pleasant change to doing installations on building sites or car and van wheels which tend to be my main work.

I have noticed recently that I am particularly asked to protect the tyres on grain trailers in preparation for harvest time. It should come as no surprise considering how time critical the harvest is and the considerable losses that can be attributed to wet weather during this period. At a recent farm job, I was asked to puncture protect the tyres on 2 grain trailers which had tyres dating back to 1985. They are only used a few days per year apparently but a puncture could be a significant cost if the trailer is down during this crucial time.

The farmer simply looked at this as risk reduction and told me it is clearly worth trying to eliminate the risk of punctures to ensure they are able to keep moving through the harvest period.

In a previous year, I was called on a Sunday afternoon during harvest by a local farmer who had a flat tyre on his combine. The tyre fitter could not come out straight away and he asked if I could help him out to get him up and running as a repair rather than prevention. I was confident that I could help and about an hour later I had treated the tyre in the field and he was back up and running. The added benefit for the farmer was the tyre now being protected for the life of the tyre, as well as having the puncture repaired.