Hiring a truck to move my trailer

No paperwork needed. I also do quite a bit of local and it’s much simpler than the OTR stuff. No BOL etc, rate con etc.
Most local equipment companies will likely be reluctant to run power only as they aren’t able to move on to the next load without returning to the yard to get their trailer. “Unless the pay is worth that”
Wrecker company could handle it with ease. However, they are very likely to charge more for their time as it’s an “on demand “ move vs a scheduled move.
I’d call around and price out your options then compare it to tagging your own outfit and maybe a P/T driver/operator.

 

Most if not all local equipment haulers charge 150-180 an hour port to port just like the towing companies.

 

You'll be lucky to get it moved locally for less than $500 a trip, probably more. I do some of these moves for local people and I charge $160 per hr for a legal load, port to port, $600 minimum.
The reason is these short moves are aggravating, and if you're not going but 5 miles down the road it will still eat the better part of half a day, by the time you drive to your place, drive to the job, and then back to my place or another load. Then I either turn down another job to do yours that will keep the truck busy all day, or I have nothing to do the rest of the day, or if I'm really lucky all the stars align and I happen to find something else to do to fill out the day (which is really rare).

I have no idea what State you are in, but in my State of TN you'd just have to buy commercial weighted tags and probably change your insurance to be 100% legal. I think commercial and farm tags cost almost the same, and with just State tags you don't have to do IFTA or follow most of the other federal DOT regulations.

 

If I recall correctly you are in Pennsylvania. PA farm tags are very restricted, basically only to move equipment or ag products to/from property owned by the farm and local markets with the distance being determined by the type/class of farm vehicle. It would not be legal to move your excavation equipment with a farm plated tractor.

Since you already have the truck and trailer it may be cheaper to register it with a PA truck plate and get the PA fuel decal and intrastate insurance. You wouldn't need operating authority hauling your own equipment and most excavation material is also exempt in Pennsylvania unless you are hauling product you don't own.

This may be more cost effective than hiring a truck to pull your trailer unless you can find a buddy to do it for you, and even then they are likely to want $500-600 for the short haul just to make it worth their time. Just a couple jobs a year will more than cover the expense of upgrading your base plates and insurance from farm to truck plates compared to hiring a local company to move your equipment.

 

Until they mess it up and you have to try and get the money out of them. I have been involved in sue a Tow Company for a while now. Make sure they have good rep before using them.

 

I would either get the truck legal to move your own trailer / do it anyway or ditch the idea entirely and hire someone with their own stuff. I do lots of local heavy equipment moving and occasionally use someone else’s trailer. Really only 2 customers do this. One trailer is custom made to hold concrete forms and they load and unload it at the jobsite. Pretty much drop and hook style for me. They don’t have a truck at all. The other is a low deck lowboy. My deck is about 26 inches at the crown (I know it’s tall) and they have a machine that we can’t get low enough on my trailer but there’s probably has a 10-12” deck height because the deck is at the bottom of the beams. They have 1 truck tractor and several trailers just not always enough guys to fill seats. I charge these guys 80% of my normal rate for the situation but I start the time when I unhook my trailer and stop when I get back to it whereas I tend to bill less hours with my own trailer because I usually can just head to my next move.

 

True but that would go for a one off normal hauler too and is why i said best chance and most likely. There is always a risk when you pay someone else to move your ####. Afterall its not THEIR stuff, and while most will be professional.....well see all the times they arent and even if their paperwork looks good its not uncommon for it to NOT be good and then have fun with a legal battle especially on under the table loads like this.

So for very short distance local stuff, i would trust a wrecker with a good rep and who lives in the area far more then some joe shmoe from 6 states over who has never been to my town before. That said when i posted that it sounded like he was going to do a 1 off move. Him doing multiple moves multiple times....that changes things

 

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A few points applicable to your situation:

If $150 per hour is a concern to move your equipment, you're really not going to like general liability insurance. Don't need it because you are just doing odd jobs for friends? Check out the cost of breaking a fiber-optic line and having it repaired.

You will find that it is often impossible to leave a trailer on a jobsite due to space requirements.

It will cost you far more in lost revenue by having to wait for your equipment to be moved than it will cost you to license the tractor you already own.

Your customers will seek professionalism. Part of that is having the right equipment to do the job, and to be able to move it in and out of the job in a timely manner. Scheduling your equipment moves will be difficult at best.

I get the sem-retired appeal to earn a little extra cash, but you will be competing with folks that spend every waking moment trying to succeed and build a business. I suspect that compliance in having someone move your equipment will be the least of your worries. Contractor licensing, insurance, bonding, and so many other aspects required to do what you are proposing to do legally will be far more important.

With all of that said, I believe the easiest solution other than licensing and insuring your own tractor, will be to develope a relationship with a local aggregate supplier, tow company, or trucking company that you can hire. They will be properly insured, and compliance to all laws will be their responsibility.

 

You could probably get away with moving your construction equipment from say your farm and your home. Plenty of construction equipment doubles as farm equipment. Where you'll get in trouble is if they see you or follow you to jobsite, or you are in a accident and they can prove you were going to or from a jobsite.

I've got a friend that owns a big farm and has a dozer to use around the farm. He had to take the dozer to the dealer for service and got pulled over by a State Trooper in Nashville. They tried every way in the world to try to prove he was doing commercial work with the dozer, but at the end of the day you are allowed to take your farm equipment back to the dealer for service.

 

dino, Before I make my suggestion, I wish you would fill in the blanks, like what kind of trailer is it, what are you moving, and so on, but most importantly what state you are in.

Most states allow you to move construction equipment to and from a location where you are going to do some work, now the word work encompasses a lot of things like loaning it out, leasing it out, demonstrating, maintaining, selling, buying, and preparing ground for planting - I simplified it.

Most of the time the cops don't give a crap unless you have big signs on it saying "ABC construction company" on the boom of the backhoe.

So if your brother can haul it, haul it.

I would not worry about anything unless you don't have insurance.

Why would I not worry about it?

Well time is money, by the time you find someone and then you hire them, you could already move it. And the ticket is still cheaper, unauthorized used of a farm vehicle.