OK to leave trailer brake applied without a trailer?

Actually I meant to say "unapplied" or "pushed in"...would it be hard on the compressor mechanism to let it pump air out of an unattached hose for hours and hours? Just wondering.

 

No, it didn't. There is a scenario in which I would need to do it, which is why I'm asking. I doubt the hose holder is airtight---probably not even close.

 

I don't know enough about compressors to know whether it's hard for them to run at full speed continuously for hours on end. I'm guessing it might be hard on them.

 

Thanks that'll work.

The company I drive for has the engine shut down after only about 5 or 6 minutes with the tractor brake applied. If you're hooked to a trailer then you can release the tractor brake without having to worry about the truck rolling while you're asleep, but in this case the engine still shuts down after about 30 minutes, so that's not a solution.

If you release both the tractor and trailer brakes, the engine idles indefinitely. I got myself two massive wheel chocks for this scenario, or you could also try to find a curb to park against at the bottom of an incline, etc. I'd feel safe sleeping without any brakes applied using either of these methods to keep the truck from rolling.

However, if you don't have any trailer, what then? You don't want to mess up your compressor, which is why I asked the question. A plugged glad hand solves that problem.

My employer evidently thinks the feature that turns the truck engine on and off suffices to let drivers sleep in the desert heat during the summer. That works fine for me during the day, even if it's 110 degrees outside, but I'm a light sleeper, so the sudden jolt to the cab from the engine turning on/off always wakes me up, which is totally unacceptable---the engine tends to come back on less than 15 minutes later, stay on for maybe 30-45 minutes, turn off, then repeat.

It's October now so I don't expect to have any need to leave the brakes unapplied all night until April or May at the earliest, since I mainly just run up and down I-5 where it only gets so cold at night (the truck's Espar heater suffices).

My employer apparently hasn't thought through what they're incentivizing drivers to do by letting the truck idle indefinitely with the brakes unapplied. I'm probably not the only one who's experimented with the shutdown feature to figure out how to get around it.

 

See my comment above.