to all end dump haulers...

Well y’all, I ran my first week of end dump this last week. Got all setup last week and Hooked up to the trailer last Friday, practice a few raises and techniques with a couple old hands on Friday and even more on Saturday then Went and pre-loaded man-sand out of Bridgeport on Saturday and got set up with one of the quarries there. I am glad I went on a Sat. As it was less crowded and I got to feel my way around a bit without the hustle and bustle of another week.

Anyhow, let me back up a bit and tell y’all the path I’m on right now. I looked and looked for a decent aluminum trailer to either lease or buy and then just decided I didn’t want to sign a year lease for something I’ve never done and may hate and I should not invest in buying one either. So the company I’m working with had a 2017 steel half round I could week to week for $200 a week. Trailer is in good shape and I could turn it in any day if I find the right one to buy if I like doing end dump. With all my flatbed stuff removed and most things I won’t use local my 379 scales at 20160 lbs with 1/2 tank of fuel. Hooked up to the half round (which is heavy) I am about 34600 (yikes) so depending on fuel I can only load about 22+ and my last load Friday was exactly 80k and I held 22.81 ton. Every time I load I think man, I wish I had a #### light aluminum trailer lol. Plus I am still waiting for my Texas over-axle to come though which will help a lot.

So what I’ve done with this weeks loads is add all of them up to see my starting week gross and adding 3 ton to it for when the over-axle and aluminum trailer come through. That 3 ton per load will help so much. Now as it is. I could make it okay with this trailer if I didn’t want to do better but I want that extra money.

I asked for easy loads to start out like concrete plant stuff so I am on level ground and give me some real world experience. So first three days was 3 loads per day to concrete plant, the pickup were so quick and the deliveries were super quick and easy and I never took more than 10-15 to get loaded even when busy and dumping was even faster. I was impressed by that. What I wasn’t prepared for was the traffic to the concrete plant at back was absolutely hell Lolol. For someone used to DFW metroplex traffic (which really doesn’t faze me much) the only route to this plant is through city construction and light after busy light and by second day I had thought I am not doing this one more day… Lolol… but I woke up Wednesday morning and told myself stop being a lil Biioottcchh lol. It went much better after that or I adapted to it. Now the fourth day I was ready to spread my wings some more and delivered some utility rock to a construction site 2 times and some screened sand to a neighborhood homesite. Last day was 2 more to concrete plant and 1 to a neighborhood that was tight as hell backing down a culdesac and getting stuck on some rip rap type rock as I was trying to get out after dumping. I literally remember someone posting that you can crabwalk a frameless if you get stuck and it took 4 times of crab walking to get me over the rocks.

All in all I enjoyed the week, I’ll have to adjust to some of the traffic and improve my technique but I didn’t have anything that alarmed me about this type of work other than traffic shock and the getting stuck on the rocks. Not big rocks but enough to keep me from getting good traction.

I did not make a ton of money because I did the concrete plant to get going but I’ll make more once I am doing mostly construction sites etc.

Here is my honest haul week… for anyone wondering what an easy week of getting started was and being home every day. And only being able to haul 22+ ton.

15 loads, 3 diff quarries… 6 of man sand, 5 of 1” crushed, 2 of blended utility, 1 of screened sand, and one of 1.5” rock

$4715 and change and the ol’ 379 took $1750 fuel (most of which was that darn stop and go traffic lights)
If I could haul 3 more ton per load I’d be at $5374 and change. Difference of $659 a week and an extra $34k plus a year so if I stick with this an aluminum will easily pay for itself.

Now before anyone says I need to be making more I agree. I am taking easy loads paying less for experience, they have much better loads when I am ready. I just didn’t want to dump rip or anything until I feel ready. I think I will be doing 99.9% rock and sand out of the massive quarries we have so close as long as I enjoy that.

To me quality of life is important, I got into this so I could be home daily with my wife who has not been doing well. We don’t have a ton of bills and I can make it on less. I want to get to a more comfortable level and see how it goes. I have almost decided to never go over the road again so I can be home in a matter of hours not days if I need to get there. I may pull the sleeper off soon as well but I am still making sure I’ll continue. So this fulfills the need, I also don’t have any desire to work for someone else. I have literally driven within a mile of our home on multiple run a;ready. Gives me great price of mind to be close if she needs me.

Sorry for the long read. Thanks for y’all that answered my questions.

 

If you can pull your sleeper off you'll be money ahead to do it. Stash it somewhere in case you go back OTR. Why haul dead weight?

 

My exact thought.

 

I agree with y’all on Sleeper @REO6205 and @MartinFromBC. I wanted to make sure this is something I wanted to continue before I removed the sleeper.

Long story short I’ve been holding out hope my wife would get better and Docs would figure out what was going on and I would go OTR again or occasionally but really with what she has been dealing with I can’t be gone. I made it work as long as I could. I have a direct open deck customer that pays well and I really love working with. However common sense has to prevail.

I’ve already looked into daycab kit and or constructing my own rear panel. I’ll probably give it another month or so before I make that leap. But it has been well thought out.

 

What’s up everyone, been pretty busy around here lately, hectic though. Wanted to share this mornings experience, dispatched on a load of DDG going down to a massive ranch in south Florida, I believe 300,000 plus acres, of course their feed bins are in the farthest reaches of this place. After being on this lime rock road for 8 miles, this is what I run in to, road washed away and covered in water that, to my best guess was at least 3 feet deep (see attached photos). Had to back up close to 2 miles to finally find a gate to back in and turn around, here’s where it gets even more aggravating, finally get turned around and was told there’s another way in, funny part though, it was another 44 miles to get there. I could go on, but I won’t, my BP has been through the roof enough today, safe travels all.

 

Jeez! I’m not gonna lie to ya buddy that sounds like a terrible day. 44 miles just to get to the other side. Wow. I never like hauling wet feed in an end dump. Plus, at least up here, you show up and every farmers like “oh well we usually get this in a belt trailer”. Well ya don’t today, so where do you want this ####.

 

@motocross25 exactly, “do your best to get it in the bin” HA! I’ll do my best to not drag it out the driveway

 

Nice looking unit!

 

@Trashtrucker1707 HA my neighbor who has a giant cattle ranch which is of course next to my property had me hauling in there when we had so much rain. Since part of the ranch is next to the river, guess where I had to go, yup you guessed it next to the river. Oh yea did I mention there is NO other way in and the road was under water and fence line was all I had to go by to stay afloat ROFLMBO. I took a video until I got in the water and had to pay real close attention to where I was or thought I was on the underwater road. I'll try to post it but I think it's too big. What will the job situation be there? Can you transfer and stay with your company? Oh yea MO has personal income tax be ready for that!

@staceydude A belated welcome and a big howdy. I hate to hear about your wife, a buddy of mines wife is fighting brain cancer, just a horrible situation to be in for everyone.
Just some thoughts to share with you related to the sleeper. I have a 379 with the big ultra 70 inch sleeper big cat and well my truck alone weighs right at 22K. I am home everyday how ever I won't take my sleeper off for several reasons.

• Dumping can be a fickle industry, never know when you might not have a choice about an over nighter.
• I need a place for all my tools, parts and dog ramp.
• My dog, Ziva rides with me everywhere no mater what I am driving, so no sleeper means no place for her to nap and no where for her ramp to be stored.
• Being a female well umm lets say it's much more difficult for us to find facilities, so the sleeper makes a good blocker if you get my drift.
• I use my truck for personal road trips since I HATE motels/hotels. The fridge is handy then.

A pointer on hauling Rap. MAKE SURE you have a level place for the entire length of the trailer since you will lock the truck down and walk the trailer to you. I can't tell you how many times I have seen drivers get in a BAD situation because of that and hence caused damage to the rear of the trailer and tail gate.
Sounds like you have a good gig going and I wish you the best of luck. I hope to be on here more since I have resolved some of the issues that kept me off the WWW LOL.
Happy Trails to everyone!