Field notes · 6 min read
The Drums in the Corner of the Machinery Shed
Every second machinery shed on the Downs has a stack of drums against the back wall. Everybody knows it isn't ideal. Here's what the alternative looks like and what it costs to get wrong.
Broadacre farming uses a lot of chemical, and it arrives in bulk because that's how it's sold. Where it ends up is usually wherever there was room — the corner of the machinery shed, a lean-to, occasionally an old container that was never meant for the job.
What's wrong with the shed corner
Three things, in rising order of how much they'll cost you.
Heat. A closed shed on the Downs in February gets hot enough to degrade active ingredients and pressurise containers. Product that's been cooked doesn't work as well, and you find out at the worst possible time.
Containment. A split drum on a shed floor goes wherever the floor slopes, which is usually towards the door and then onto the ground. On a property with a bore or a dam anywhere downhill, that's a serious problem and not one you can undo.
Compliance. Storage requirements for agricultural chemicals are real, they're auditable, and they attach to you. Insurers care too. The cost of getting it wrong isn't a fine you pay and move on from — it's a finding on your operation and, in a bad case, a contamination problem on your own country.
What a DG container actually is
It is not a standard container with a warning sticker on it. A compliant dangerous goods unit is built for the purpose and the differences are structural.
A bunded floor. A sealed sump underneath a removable grated deck that will hold the contents of a spill instead of letting it run out the door. This is the single most important feature and the one that separates a real DG unit from a repurposed box.
Ventilation. Purpose-built louvres sized for the unit, so vapour doesn't accumulate and the internal temperature stays survivable. Not a couple of holes cut in the end wall.
Signage, fittings and separation. Correct class placarding, appropriate internal shelving that doesn't create a hazard of its own, and — where you're storing more than one class — the separation the rules require between things that must not meet each other.
Specify it properly or don't bother
The mistake we see is people ordering "a DG container" without saying what's going in it. Requirements differ by class and by quantity, and a unit that's right for one job can be non-compliant for another. Getting this wrong is not something a refund fixes — the unit is fine, it just isn't the right unit for your shelf.
So before you order, have three answers ready: the classes you're storing, roughly how much of each, and whether anything needs to be kept apart from anything else. That's a five-minute phone call and it settles the specification.
We keep these in stock, because between the cropping country around Cecil Plains and Pittsworth, the gas contractors out past Chinchilla and Miles, and every workshop on the Downs with solvents on a shelf, the demand out here is ordinary.
Where to put it
Away from the shed and away from anything you'd hate to contaminate — the house, the tank, the bore, the dam. Downhill of nothing important. Somewhere a fire appliance could reach. And accessible enough that people actually use it rather than leaving drums by the door because the proper storage is inconvenient.
Ring (07) 4516 5999 with your list and we'll match a unit to it.