Reefer, shut off while unloading ??

Keep it running unless directed otherwise. You are responsible for the load until empty. You may be in the door awhile before they begin.

 

If they shut it off fine. If you do it, it can cost you the load.

You can put a door switch in that will kick the unit into low speed when the doors are open to mitigate fuel burn during extended dock time.

 

If it is your trailer, I would leave it running until they open the dock door and start pulling the load off. Then shut it off unless they tell you to leave it on (which I've never been-not unloading anyhow), or maybe if you know it is going to take long before they finish pulling it, and shut the dock door, and the temperature outside is extreme. If itis a company trailer, well run it. There might be some exceptions to this general rule, like a very picky customer, berries, etc. Otherwise, most refrigerated products have a somewhat wide temp range, and it takes a while to get it out out of that range when the dock door is open and cold air is coming from the facility.

 

I never shut off the reefer unit unless the customer tells me to.
CYA until that trailer is away from the door, unless the customer says otherwise.

 

You can always ask them about shutting it off. If there is a temp recorder and/or you have satellite temp recording (I do), then your covered. You can prove the only time the product went out of range was at the dock-if it gets out of range as the air from the warehouse flows in the trailer. With frozen loads, many, if not most warehouses stage it where it is warmer than than the deep freezer they move it to after breaking down and counting.

 

I only do reefer. I have never been told to shut off my reefer. They usually tell me to preset it at a certain temp before I get there.

They have come out and checked my temp to make sure I was in range.

If they were to turn off my refer I would ask what the reason was.

 

I think tsscottme (who asked in the original post) was primarily referring to when getting unloaded. When getting loaded, sure, I am always asked to precooked, and am more reluctant to turn off then.

 

In my first post, I said that would be an exception. However, if it is between 25 degrees and 40, and the product range is 33-38 (like yogart), I probably would worry about it. Key up on what other guys are doing at the dock, if your worried. If your at Walmart in Ochelata, OK, and 2 doors down a truck with a company out if Tulsa has his shut off, odds are he has gone in there a few times. It depends upon outside temp, what you have on, how picky of a reputation the customer has, and how long you expect it to take.