How common is it for a shipper / broker with a dry van load to refuse to load a reefer?

As long as it isn't sub zero temps of the far north with a dry van if you leave your truck idling it agitates the beverage product inside the containers just enough to keep them from freezing.

 

Give hauled pig hides..guts..and fish food.the fish food was in a dry van.Ive cleaned and deodorized it but was still refused to be loaded.They said it stank..any advice to get rid of odor?coffee did not work as well

 

Can you not have it cleaned with chlorine or peroxide? That should oxidize anything and eliminate all smells but I’m not a reefer guy so idk

 

Older reefers get body fatigue where the rivets hold the floor and side panels together. Since a sealed reefer is basically a positively charged air chamber with the only outlets being the floor plugs, moisture and smells get pushed into those loose seams where the insulation is, and it's nearly impossible to get some smells out.

At a previous employer I hauled a load of onions in an older reefer, and after a number of refused subsequent loads because of the smell, they sold that trailer. Newer reefers can usually smell fresh after a good washout.

 

9 hours to load, 13 hours to unload at grocery warehouse after 2:45am appointment. Then to have to pay lumpers after they took 13 hours all to next look forward to 2 hour line at the blue beacon for a wash out.

No thanks

 

On the Landstar board less than 10% of van loads are listed as available to reefer. But some of that is likely due to agent laziness, because only 1% of the Landstar fleet has a reefer. Even when you call and ask, I think a lot of the refusals are due to the naivete or ignorance of the agency worker you talk to, especially if they're new and have mainly dealt with the Landstar fleet.

If you have access to a board, you can do a search in an area for van freight, get the total, then switch your parameter to reefer and count up the loads listed for either van or reefer. Some simple math will give you a ballpark percent of van loads that will accept a reefer. Keep in mind there will be some variance from one area to the next, depending on types of freight prevalent in a given market.

 

I run reefer exclusively. Usually it will say on the board, if they will load a reefer and dry van, but there are times they will not load a reefer. But remember a reefer is much heavier, so you won't be able to haul as much weight. Lastly, if you have no reefer experience, its a whole new ballgame......