Getting a Reefer to dry out quickly after unload

I spent 6 weeks on the east coast (FL to PA) with a brand new Utility. The trailer gained about 300 pounds by the time I got it back here to Phoenix. I spent 5 days at home with both doors open, lost 300 pounds.
I was on a mission to find out where all this moisture was, apparently its normal to suck water into the insulation in the roof and walls. The bead of caulking where the kick panel on the floor meets the side wall had been blasted away when I got a pressure wash (had to use high pressure to get potatoes out of the floor). The only way to REALLY REALLY dry your trailer is spend a week in the desert with your doors open.

 

Regardless of what you've got in there, as long as it's being pulled out by a forklift you want your floor as dry as possible. I've seen two forklifts in just the last year end up with forks sticking out the walls of a trailer because warm humid air hitting the cool floor.

We'll let the reefer run at about 45 for an hour after emptying the thing to dry the floors out. It does a decent job. Never tried turning it up to 80, but I know it won't take a few minutes. We've mostly got ridged aluminum floors (I'm sure there's a proper term, but I dunno what it is) on the trailers we use. Squeegee works fine for the flat steel floors, but the ridged aluminum ones are a PITA in all respects, still, they're a lot nicer.

 

Was wondering if anyone had came up with a new method? Also is the answer heat or cold? Esp since many newer trailers dont have pepper doors?

 

You can freeze and you can also cook cantcha?

Slam the doors, crank the temp as high she will go. Hit breakfast.

 

I find that cold works better... If I have a few hours I set it at 40 degrees amd roll... If I need a really fast dry... I freeze it -10 degrees.

 

Cold is better. Set at 35 and continuous and force a defrost at 30 minutes. Park on an incline so as much water as possible will drain out. Freezings can freeze a lot of water in place and will take considerable longer to get the ice to dry out. Also, if your load locks are wet and you freeze, you may have to pull them out when at the shipper so they'll thaw out and operate correctly.

After an hour, it should be dry enough to satisfy all but the pickiest shippers that demand dry trailers.

 

That's exactly what i do.

Warm air holds more humidity than cold air, thus drying faster.

After i look and see it's visibly dry, i run it back to cooling mode for a little and it pulls the humidity right back out with the evaporator. Whole process takes about 1-1.5hrs to really dry it good.

 

That’s all well and good but getting a moist column of hot air below 0F is going to take a very long time. The process of cooling removes humidity, the process of heating increases humidity. While “standing water” may effectively evaporate faster in “hot” air, we’re still talking about a sealed environment and I assume we will need to quickly get it very cold at some point.

Cooling with low humidity is much faster. But I guess try it yourself and see what gets you dry enough and cold enough, the fastest.

 

I think it also depends on your TRU , my carrier x4 warms up pretty fast and coldc back down.

I only do the warm/cold method if it's getting parked.

If you're drying for the next shipper, just keep it on Cooling mode and run continuous fan it'll dry pretty quick

 

My vote is for warm air, holds more moisture in it. Picked up medical pill bottles I believe in North Dakota once, and shipper required 100% clean and 100% dry trailer. Washed in MN and drove a couple hours to shipper at like 40 degrees high air (my carrier advised that's quickest). Still very wet.

Cranked it up to 9X degrees and checked in with shipper. By the time the reefer got up to 90 it was mostly dry. Used hand towels to wipe down some moisture on the walls.