Walking Floor Drivers?

They allow for unloading a bulk product with out using a dump trailer. They are used around here for hauling wood shavings, animal feed, peat moss, garbage, and other low density hi cube products. good for unloading on uneven surfaces where a dump trailer would tip over. Not a lot of guys haul pallet freight with them here as the pallet can cause more ware on the floors than a bulk product.

 

Exactly, all those products are light weight and hauled in bulk. Try dumping a 48 or 53 like an end dump? Ha..no way! walking floor is much safer, and the truck does not have to be straight or completely level. Most 80,000 GVW trucks with a 48' walking floor can get about 110 cubic yards of bark/fiber material in there.

 

Well since you're original search for drivers running walking floors hasn't turned up anything, I'll chime in. I work for Pritchett Trucking in Florida and that's pretty much our main business, I use them for a variety of products. Any type of wood product, the pay sucks for this, "fluff" material which is the by-product of recycling cars, I actually have a customer over in Branford, Fl that uses bailed up recycled carpet as a fuel for their concrete production facility. The one thing to keep in mind is that you can have a serious mess on your hands depending on what type of material you haul, therefore you need to have what they call a "drag rag". The purpose of the drag rag is to essentially sweep your trailer as the load comes out and make it to where you don't have so much sweeping to do when the load is off. Depending on the variety of material you haul, you'll need a clean floor for all your different loads, especially any type of feed or fertilizers. Back do the drag rag, how that basically works is you need to get a load lock and secure it in the front of your trailer about head high, then get yourself a piece of old lumber tarp atlest trailer width, and probably 10 to 15 feet long, you'll drape it over the load lock and allow the bulk of it to lie on the floor, make sure when you're loading that the operator doesn't load behind the rag or the whole process will not work, once you do this correctly though it will save you a ton of time in the unloading process. Sorry for the long windeness of this, but it should help explain quite a bit.

 

Trashtruckers is right about the drag rag. I have spring clamps screwed about eye level to the front wall and just clip the tarp up that way. No load lock bar or 2by to deal with and i can fold the tarp up and strap it to the catwalk if i dont need it.

I also keep a section of smaller chain with a nut and bolt for some of the feed mills that i go to that have small pits to unload into. I just chain the doors so they only open a little and run the floor at a idle so i dont dump feed everywhere and have to shovel half the load to the pit.

Have to remember that if you use the floor to move your load forward or backwards to get the weights legal that you can blow the doors and front wall out if you dont watch what your doing.

 

Haven't used one but I remember hearing the instruction; make sure nobody's on top before starting the floor moving.

 

You can walk on the floor while its running, just a little weird at first with the slats moving opposite directions under your feet.

 

No dude, on top of the load. With some materials the action of the floor makes them like quicksand.

 

No reason to even be in the trailer or on top of the load while unloading.