Idle time quota advice

ive woke up a couple times in the last week and cranked up for a few minutes and put on a sweatshirt

 

a good tip is to put blankets under your matress or put one of those "eggshell" padsu7nder your sheets. alot of cold comes from UNDER your bunk

 

I'll have to remember that one. I'll pass that on to hubby!

 

This is true. The cubbie doors aren't particularly well insulated, and the steel bulkhead between the cubbies and the cab isn't insulated at all (at least, not on the 379s I drove)

May has Webasto - never had a problem running down the batteries - they apparently burn diesel.

Me, I'm all in favor of APUs - but I hear that generally the ones bought by companies tend to be on the.. um.. weak side. Not enough oomph to cool the cab in 100 degree heat, and not enough oomph to heat the cab once it drops below 10 or so.

Assuming I get another job OTR, I'll almost certainly pop for a generator of my own, along with a small heater. Maybe a window-mount A/C while I'm at it.

 

Another job? You're not driving for May anymore?

 

When I drove for Major (now Dartco) they had TriPac APUs, and they worked great. Even in Phoenix in the summer, you pull the curtains, crank up the APU, and it was fine.
But about the companies cracking down on idle times....I agree that it's unfair and all that, BUT...
take a look around and you'll find that we all have our fellow drivers to thank for this as well. Who hasn't seen the truck idling while the driver's inside eating? Or running all night with the AC on, and it's only 60 outside. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a "company man" but jeeze people, use a little common sense too. I'm sure gonna be upset if someone wasted a large part of the diesel that I just bought, so why wouldn't a company be concerned too? I'm not saying that you should freeze/bake in the truck just to save them some money....
On another note, here's something that I find unfair about idle times....let's say your computer gets reset, so you're at 0% idle....you drive 1 shift, and get stuck setting during the hottest part of the day, so your idle jumps to 60%...for the next 3 nights you don't idle, but does your idle % come down? Nope. It only drops if the vehicle is moving. What a load of crap. So I get penalized for the couple hours I did idle, but I get no credit for the couple NIGHTS that I didn't idle.....

 

The fan in the wabasco runs off the battery but on may's trucks they had a low battery switch so if the power dropped below a set point it would kill all auxiliary things untill you restarted the truck.

 

Nah - I wish I was, but I parked my truck (undamaged) in the ditch. It was the culmination of a baaaad week, so May suggested it might behoove me to go break somebody else's toys for a while.