Tarp Maintenance

Consider yourself lucky. If a driver drops off tarps at our yard without tagging them as bad they go right back out on the road. Often when I'm d/h at the yard I have little enough time to do a decent post trip on the one trailer and pre trip on the other, along with resupplying everything I'm leaving on the load I'm dropping. I don't often have time to check out the new tarps, and I've have multiple instances of rolling a tarp out over a load and discovering a five foot long cut right along the side....

Good times.

 

Those moving blankets are a great idea.
I get them for 8-10 a blanket.
If you need a good source, try United Van Lines, Atlas and some of the others.
They buy the heavy duty oversized mostly for things like furniture and large fragile items.
The guy at United says if they get dirty, gritty, stained, etc.. they can't use them again.
They usually have several pallets of them sitting in the warehouse and willing to sale them pretty cheap.

 

I got a few just by asking a bed bugger at a truckstop. Moving companies usually have 2 qualities of pads. Good quality for the trucks and slightly smaller lesser quality for the warehouse. Sometimes the warehouse pads will end up on a truck and the driver is just glad to be rid of them. You're right though about dirty ones. Can't put a dirty pad on a customers furniture. Those can be bought pretty cheap off drivers as well.

 

Take old tarps.
Cut to 120 inches wide and 25 foot long.
3 off them.
You then have protection for your "good" tarps and a extra layer to keep the moisture off the load.
Use as needed.
Cheap,quick and easy to handle.

Bonus:if you have a wide or strange shaped load you can use them to cover something your regular tarps cannot.

 

I used to put a cross with 2 ropes at the end off the tarped load.
Keeps the tarp from flapping and thus rubbing on the edges off the load.(the buldge on top at the end you see the tarp making when going down the road)

 

I loaded at a conveyor factory. Loader asked if I needed any padding.
Always my answer is yes.
He pointed to trash bin full of belt material... He says take what you want.
My load of conveyor stands made with angle and C channel was completely covered with pieces 2.5'-3' wide and 8'. long..my load was 25' long 7' wide.
I now have a little extra tarp protection.

 

conveyor belt and rubber mudflaps make the best edge protectors. I can't ever pass up a rubber mud flap on the ground at the truck stop.