Question of Chains vs. Straps

Those prefabricated buildings can be some of the worse loads to haul. Especially when you have the entire building on your trailer. I'm talking the frame, the walls, the metal roof, every nut, bolt and screw. Everything except the concrete for the floor.
Most of the places you might pick those loads up at have a statement stamped on the bills that read "NO CHAINS"
Most of the material is thin, so it will bend very easily.
It looks like the driver in the article was hauling the frame pieces for such building. usually not extremely heavy, but very top heavy when the load is tall. I know of a few companies that produce those beams, and the rest of the building, when the load is a preload, it will not be belly strapped.
If you have a tall load of this material, PLEASE be sure to run straps through the middle. If you do not have a long pole, ask the shipper for one.
Also, the dunnage they use is usually crap too. Check all of it.

*May GOD bless that man and his family*

 

My tarps, edge protecters and binders are in my box on the trailer and my chains and extra straps are in my extra boxes on the truck in milk crates. Load bar is in the sleeper compartment along with my hard hat and other safty gear plus my flags and oversize sighns. I haul the same freight daily so i do not carry alot of extra stuff i will never use.

 

So in other words straps stretch more than chains. Elasticity!

Hold it now, if a strap has more stretch than a chain(see first quote), a chain will become loose before a strap. The strap may have less tension than when first tightened but it will still have some tension as opposed to a totally loose chain. Chains have less elasticity.

One with experience using straps and chains will realize your quotes contradict each other.

And as far as straps being easier to tighten than chains, all I need to grab is my gloves to tighten ratchet binders on my chains. For straps I also need to grab my winch bar.

Had a brand new chain break a link at the weld once. Probably defective.
Every time I tighten a chain I think of that.



We'll just have to agree to disagree. In my experience I feel safer using a mix of chains and straps on long steel instead of chains only. I use what I feel will keep the load in place and I prove myself right time after time.

Some of these age old policies like steel on steel were made by 60 year old chubsters who sat in the office all day long chain smoking and dealing with the aftermath of incompetent drivers.

 

Got ya. I was just wondering becuase I have all my stuff in my rack and in my sleeper compartment. We don't have trailer boxes, but sure wish we did. Then i would have somewhere to put my tarps, but it would still be a pain becuase we switch trailers a lot.

 

First off if your stretching chains you are tightening them to much, and then they are junk afterwards. I see to many doing this not realizing they are actually worse off.

Straps stretch, thats the problem a lot of times. They also cut easily. The difference is with a chain and ratchet binder you don't have to go another notch, you just have to grab and pull to desired tightness. With straps you don't always have that option.

Also with straps you don't have to get on the trailer to tighten them like you do chains, unless you are using snap binders. To some thats a lot of work. You also don't have to loosen your tarp up or open the back of the wagon. So as for your chains are easier, thats BS, try again.

 

bad thing about straps. is how they get loose when they get wet. i did a 600 mile trip last year and the rain never stopped.

had to replace all the straps after that load.

 

Why do you have to replace them? They do get wet and they dry. Chains get wet and rust but we don't go get new ones.

 

Frozen straps come lose also. I have broken chains when temp is below zero. Chains become brittle in extreme temperatures.

 

WHY?

Do you get your chains at WalMart?

These two posts don't make any sense to me at all...In all my years of flatbedding and heavy haul I have never had a chain break because it was cold and I have never even heard of anyone needing to replace straps because they got wet.

 

They were on sale .... Just kidding. The only time I have broken a chain is in the winter. May have just been a bad link that I did not see. Put a chain link in a bucket filled with dry ice for over a hour. Take it out and snack it with a hammer and watch what happens.