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Silos-those tall cylindrical structures that dot rural landscapes-are to most people just farm structures, the towers beside barns. But silos are actually used for much more than animal feed.
Sollenberger Silos Corp., which manufactures poured concrete silos, recently built one at American Woodmark' s new plant in Moorefield, W.Va., to store sawdust.
"Silos can provide storage for any flowable material: liquids, industrial wastes, aggregates, cement," says Bob Francis, national sales manager for Sollenberger Silos, headquartered near Chambersburg, Pa.
Sollenberger has also built two silos for homes, one near Philadelphia and one in Vermont; two more in New Jersey for a railroad construction company's offices; and several for retail operations, at a huge dairy store in Yonkers, N.Y. and in a shopping mall in Waynesboro, Va.
"In 1997, I got a call from a general contractor who asked me, 'Can you build a silo for a cell tower?'" says Francis. "A community near Rochester, N.Y. was refusing to approve a steel cell phone tower, until a farmer on the planning committee asked if the contractor could build a silo instead. I told the contractor yes, but I didn't tell him we hadn't done it before."
Since then, Sollenberger has built 25 cell phone silos, from Connecticut to Virginia, in areas like Pennsylvania Amish country where the structures fit into the historic and scenic landscapes better than metal towers.
Some of these silos are only used for telecommunications, with all the antennas and cables hidden inside. These use "stealth-panels" for some sections of the wall, made from a material that allows the radio signals to pass through but looks like the rest of the concrete structure. Other silos have the antennas mounted on the exterior so...