Rookie haulin a reefer

Wind varies on weight, top heavy, steady west TX dust storm wind or a gusting microburst thunderstorm, cross wind, headwind, tailwind? There are too many variables to give you an exact answer. I would be leary with 40+ cross winds in an approaching front loaded light. Winds funnel through valleys and gain speed. Crossing high bridges or coming out of mountain tunnels is a bad place for surprise gusts. You'll learn your limits. But the few that go over usually were caught off guard. Weather planning should be part of your pretrip.

Most receivers I've been too at -10 make you keep your doors closed and tell you to open them when they are ready to load. If they tell you to open the doors and back to the dock, do what they say. You have to remember their warehouse is pretty close to that temp and it will help keep your trailer cold. If their door is closed, so should yours. If theirs is open it's okay for yours to be open. You have to remember stacked freight like that can take several hours for the temperature to settle a temperature change. The time to load and the doors back closed is sufficient time to recover without the freight temp changing a few degrees.

Reefer drivers are usually last to the truck stops. You can circle until one leaves or find a secondary place like a rest area. I wouldn't get in the habit of Walmarts. They want drivers to shop and leave. The reason many forbid us is because many think they are truck stops and throw their garbage and waste out. I spent many of my breaks on or near the customers property. Many reefer drivers like night driving because of our weird load/unload times. Then you have the whole truck stop.

Load locks as a rule of thumb use them on double stacked pallets or pallets that aren't shrink wrapped. Freight can bounce up and down on bigger bumps, vibrate and work it's way backwards if it's lose freight. Freight stacked to the ceiling and to the doors can be the most dangerous when you open the doors and it falls on you. There was a driver this past summer that died from that. Always stand to the side opening your door or better yet put you a load lock on from the dock. Loads like some produce will lean a certain direction. Always have the loader lean them forward or at minimum towards the walls or each other depending what it is. Meat loads will shrink wrap but many times will throw a couple loose boxes on the back pallets. Just push them forward so they ain't sitting near the back edge. Double load locks always recheck the first one because you just pushed the wall out more. I always put one on the top row and maybe 3-4 rows down. Down low is useless. They won't stop a fall but they stop the initial motion to fall if that makes sense.

 

I've had fresh seafood rejected for being a fraction of a degree too high. I've gotten into the habit of dropping the temp 1-2 degrees lower than what the bol states on those loads.

 

Refrigerated or frozen? Refrigerated you have to compensate for the outside temp. Hot summer sun you might drop 2 degrees and the same with extreme cold if it's sensitive produce like banana's you might raise 2 degrees to maintain the right pulp temp. I never seen anyone that critical on frozen but I guess you can compensate there too.

 

Night time too is when wind picks up in speed compared to the daytime.

 

Load locks to get a good bite that will stay.....Take 1 load lock and jack it in place tight right below where you want your load lock to be. Now take the load lock that your going to leave in place and jack it in place tight and tighter and remove the first one you just put in and move it down towards the bottom of the freight.

 

I had rejects on seafood that had to be 38 degrees. The first was herring that was 39 degrees, the other was imitation crab meat that was 38.3.

 

good questions. I always shut the unit off once it was in a door. You end up drawing all the hotter humid air in if you leave it running. That said, there are shippers and receivers who want them running. If in doubt, ask them. As for parking, try to park next to another reefer if possible but if ya can't you can nose in. If those can't be done, do your best to get the unit either a little forward or behind the sleeper on the truck you're parked next too..and if its one of those noisy squawlers let it run on continuous instead of cycle sentry.

 

I haul enough bananas and when I load them it is usually 19-20 pallets. For the doubles I'll have the loader put them right together, so there is room on each wall. This keeps the air flowing around entire pallets and also saves the bottom sides of my reefer. In the past if the bottom sides get beat up too much some shippers won't load it because they think it can cut open the product. I don't need this happening. Also the bananas I haul only travel about 500 miles or so.

 

Terrapin does a lot of freight come out of md?