Walking Floor Drivers?

Schwend out of Dade City has some I think. I know they started pneumatics but I thought I saw a live floor last month.

You could try Central States hauling feed out of Lake City.

Or there is always garbage in south florida but you'll have to compete with the cubans.

Philmans Custom Service has seasonal work during silage seasons. Pays good but only about two months a year.



If you have a duel stage pump you could look into dumps???

 

Scwend is hopper bottom not live, but they do hire owner operators. Wasp you keep asking about pay, live bottom pay is not all so hot but it all depends on what you're hauling, feed is going to pay a little better, any wood product in my experience isn't worth turning the wheels for.

 

I knew they started pneumatics, must have been old trucks pulling the peerless' I saw.

Another thought in Florida is bulk cypress mulch. I used to get a couple loads from a company just North of Yeehaw going to Live Oak. If I can find their name I'll post it. Hauled cotton seed or hay down and mulch or citrus pulp up. Really need a wedge to get in most feed lanes.


There started being a behind load of live floors before I left (oh 5 years ago or so) because we could clear what OTR could and ran way less. People started cutting rates fierce and Pritchett and Walpole started pushing into feed. May be a flooded market still I only know a couple guy's left and they run dedicated customers.

 

I work for Pritchett and would hate to try and be competitive against our rates, it's just the nature of the game down here in Florida. Like you stated you've also got Walpole, and C&W being competitive with their rates. If it were me I would not pull a live bottom as an owner op. in Florida, if the truck can pull a dump trailer I would do that first, or maybe finance the cost to get the existing pump set up to pull dump wagons.

 

We hauled Mulch from Maine to Landscape Co in Mass them Reloaded in Mass with either Demolition or Garbage back to Maine. The pay was excellent but just like anything that lasted about two years then everyone heard about it traded in their reefers or flat beds bought a live floor and started cutting the rates. We haul wood chips now and the pay basically sucks exspecially with the price of fuel. We are thinking of relocating to Florida and was wondering how the live floor business is there.

 

That is originally what the truck pulled before we bought it. I know we had to take it to a mechanic to turn the pump up and he also did something inside the control box?

 

I honestly don't think there's much of an industry down here for live bottom O/O's, most big companies have that locked up. I haul trash, and various wood products and other aggregates for a large company down here, there's a few companies like ours in the 200+ truck range that are going to be hard to compete with as far as rate goes. If I were you, like I earlier stated, I would look in to pulling a dump trailer if your PTO is set up for that, if not it might be worth while to invest the money in to getting it converted, there is more of an industry down here for O/O's pulling dump wagons, but be forewarned the allure of moving to Florida will quickly die off when you see how scarce and competitive the work is down here. You can find work here, but understand Florida has fallen on some hard times and is slowly trying to recover, especially in the sectors of aggregates and wood product hauling.

 

That is what happened with our run's..people started cutting rates. The live floor has not turned a wheel in two years. We run a chip trailer and the pay sucks..We need to do something else or just get out of it. I appreciate any info you can throw our way..

 

Same thing going on here also..We just got a call from a friend telling us that a local Co is looking for O/O to haul chips for $14.00 a ton the haul is 250 miles round trip no backhaul..Wow.. whats that a little over a dollar a mile and the fuel here is 4.18 a gallon..dont think so.