Aluminum Floor Dry Van ??

Well that can't nail stuff down in that one.....

 

I don't think you can haul some kinds of roll stock with aluminum floor. If it is a full load front to back they will load it but if you have 3 big rolls in the nose and 4 back on the tail is it possible to secure that on aluminum floor? I don't think so but someone may school us on that here. Probably other scenarios where it might be no good. Hauling robot machines for assembly lines have to be secured to the floor for example. I would pass on the aluminum floor. I had heard the same thing about rawhide stinking one up. Never ran across them as a load. I think someone told me once it was an option for a reload out of some dead hole in Texas off I-40.

You know sometimes it is best to have a line in the sand on certain freight. When I got a new trailer I refused to haul scrap paper and messy loads. I broke that rule by accident a couple of months ago because in the rush of a last minute load where I was twisting an arm I slipped up and didn't ask enough details on the freight. Luckily my trailer didn't get trashed. Going ahead I just won't mess with that garbage no matter how well it pays. Rawhide skins, no way....

 

I haul foodstuffs all the time. I have never had an issue with smells getting into the floors. Never been rejected for smells in the trailer. Unless I hauled something like scrap crushed baled aluminum cans and even that goes away after a couple of days. I have been rejected for bottled water due to daylight coming up thru hair line cracks in the wood floors. They said the robots loading the truck would break thru it. Plainfield, IN was the shipper. What causes that is washing out wood floor trailers. You're really not supposed to hose out wood floors in dry vans with water. My old one I used to but not the one I have now. Just stay away from stinky loads.

 

That sounds like a picky bottled water plant. None of them around here are like that. They want it clean and no mess but never heard any fuss about ordinary trailer odor. If it smelled like a hog #### yeah i'm sure that would be a problem lol. That place in Plainfield, IN was the fussiest I had ever seen but maybe they saved me some headache not busting thru my floor with their 25,000 lb automated robot loader.

 

Yeah that is fine.

 

Another drawback of an aluminum floor is traction. Any moisture(even condensation)will make the floor slick as ice. Forklift drivers may hesitate to load or unload, or at least go slower. Plus, with various loads, they occasionally have to load a single pallet mid-load, so they get the bridge weight right. If there is a single pallet with double pallets behind it, they may want to slide(and pivot) on the metal where they would stay put on the oak floor. Also, metal is more likely to form condensation during temperature changes, then if you're unloading before it warms, it may actually be icy.

All the reefer trailers I've pulled have had channeled aluminum, but it is usually thick enough to avoid the temperature change condensation issues.

I had to haul a load of race boats for a life-guard group years ago. The company I worked for had a few partial aluminum floor van trailers (had 3 aluminum rails, the rest of the floor was oak). This caused a little problem for the folks loading the boats because the rack system they used to stack the boats screwed to the floor, and it just so happened that some of the pre-drilled holes were over some of aluminum rails. They managed, but I told them to request 'wood floor only' trailers when they schedule a pick up from a trucking company.

Also, coffee works for odor too. Last company I worked for got their new trailers out of Lafayette, IN...the 1st load many times was a company that made empty aluminum cans for energy drinks. The new trailers would still stink from the paint they use, and many would be refused. The one older guy in shipping had us go buy a can of coffee, and spread it in the trailer and shut the doors for an hour. When they opened it to load, it smelled like Starbucks had a major accident in our trailer, but no paint smell.