Damp hay heats itself and nobody's there to see it
On a cropping farm, baled hay is stock waiting for a buyer. Hay shed temperature probes tell you when a freshly baled lot starts to heat, even over the holidays when the yard is empty.
Our News reported two fires at Nobby, on the Darling Downs, within a week. The first took 140 large bales, a truck and a mower-conditioner. Both fell in the holiday break.
- You lose the hay and the sale you'd lined up.
- Opening a hot stack lets air in and can start the fire.
800 bales against the sum insured
- Value per bale is about $157, taken from the Nobby loss ($30,000 or more over 191 bales).
- The $90,000 sum insured is assumed for illustration. Use your own policy figure.
| Bales in the shed | 800 |
|---|---|
| Hay value | About $125,600 |
| Assumed sum insured | $90,000 |
Shortfall of about $35,600 before the building and machinery.
What we put in your hay shed
-
Stainless bale core probes
Sit in the middle of the stack and read the heat where the fire starts.
1.5 to 2 m up the stack
-
Shed air sensor
Hangs under the roof, out of the sun, so a hot day isn't read as a heating stack.
Out of direct sun
-
LoRaWAN node
Sits outside the stack, away from balers and loaders, and sends each reading by radio.
Reads every 10 to 15 min
-
Gateway on the machinery shed
Collects the readings and passes them on.
Line of sight to the node
-
Starlink or 4G backhaul
Gets the alerts off the yard to your phone.
Starlink or 4G
How hay shed temperature probes work on your yard
- 1
Probes go into the bale cores
A stainless probe sits 1.5 to 2 m up in the middle of the stack. A second goes in your freshest or wettest lot.
- 2
A node sits outside the stack
The probe cable runs to a LoRaWAN node clear of balers and loaders. It reads every 10 to 15 minutes.
- 3
A gateway on the machinery shed
It picks up the radio signal and sends it out by Starlink or 4G. No wifi needed.
- 4
Your phone gets the alert
You see the temperature trend, and each lot keeps a dated record from the day it was baled.
What lands on your phone when a lot heats up
-
Tue 2:10 am
Lot B core at 50 °C for 1 h. Walk the stack, check moisture and check more often.
-
Tue 6:40 am
Lot B core at 55 °C. Plan to separate sound hay. Move machinery and fuel clear of the shed.
-
Tue 11:30 am
Lot B core up 10 °C in 24 h, now 64 °C. Call 000 first. Do not pull the stack apart.
Messages go to the people you nominate, by SMS to any phone and by email, with the reading and the time in every alert.
A walk past the shed versus a reading every 15 minutes
| Topic | Today | With monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| How often you check | When you're on the yard | Every 10 to 15 minutes, all hours |
| Holiday break | Nobody sees it | Your phone buzzes wherever you are |
| A lot heating | Found by smell or smoke | An SMS as the core climbs |
What hay shed temperature probes cost
We fix the price after a short scoping call or a site visit. It depends on how many lots you probe, the distance to the gateway and the backhaul. Ongoing support is available as a plan after handover.
Price probes for your hay shedThe fixed price covers
- Probes, nodes and shed air sensor
- Gateway and Starlink or 4G backhaul
- Installation and electrical work under licence 1513082
- Alert set-up and testing the alert path to every person you nominate
- Ongoing support plan: batteries, sensor replacement, alert tuning, new lots each season
Hay shed temperature probes on a cropping yard
Cereal hay is cut in spring and stored into summer, so the first eight weeks overlap the hottest months. Pair it with grain silo temperature monitoring.
Running cattle too? See hay bale temperature probe monitoring for station hay sheds. For the harvest fire unit, there's fire tank level monitoring.
What this won't do
- It's not fire detection or suppression, and doesn't meet any certified alarm standard.
- It doesn't replace moisture testing at baling, stack layout, firebreaks, insurance conditions or calling 000.
- A probe reads one point. A hot spot elsewhere in a big stack can be missed, so we put probes in your freshest and wettest lots.
- The probes read temperature only, not moisture or oxygen. They're alerts, not control.