Appliance Delivery

Put a crew together and hook up with Uhaul. When you reserve a truck online they have an option to have a crew come to you and load or unload the truck. You set the price but there are other crews to compete with depending on where you live. No overhead. You just show up at their house or apartment with the muscle. You might get trucks going out or coming in. I think I paid them $150 for a one bedroom and they had the truck loaded in an hour before they left for the next gig. They were well organized like a bunch of ants. I couldn't believe they done it that quick.

Go to their website and act like you are reserving a truck and you'll see the crews before check out.

 

You would have to do the work to make any money. If you just want to sit and tell others where to go, you will be the only one who gets nothing.
I have had several appliances delivered from Home Depot. I asked the lead guy about how it works contract wise. He told me he owned the truck and paid his helper. That was the only way he could make ant money himself. There were 8 other independent contractors that worked out of the same warehouse as he. They averaged 12 deliveries a day, 5 days a week. There was some saturday work, but they rotated weekends, as there was not enough work for all of them.
As i live out in the country, they had to drive 100 miles from the warehouse, just to start the route. They try to send all the longer deliveries out just one day a week in each geographical direction.
Your truck has to have a liftgate, and install the items if no direct electrical /plumbing connections. Hooking up hoses or plugging into the wall is included. And if the customer contracts, you have to haul back the broken/inoperative appliance.

 

Once and awhile i have an appliance delivery to a residential. They suck! First i will not and never entered a persons home. At best the delivery is going in the Garage and i dont care how much the homeowner screams or what they were promised by the shipper. A trucker going into someones home, especially when only a women is home is a great way to set yourself up for a lawsuit. Also there is nothing like having a refrigerator strapped to a skid only to find a half a foot of snow in a customers driveway. I had a man hand me a shovel as i was turning away and headed back to my truck to leave which i did. As far as i know when it comes to LTL carriers that deliver crap like that ABF is the only one that will bring stuff in the house and put it where the customer wants. Get yourself the largest Insurance policy you can find and have at it.

 

I think it would be easier work to take a hammer and turn really big rocks into gravel. I would do some serious research into other ventures. When you take your pay and minus out all your costs and headaches, you may make more money delivering pizza's in a Toyota Prius. Just my thought, hell I'm no expert .

 

I'm loosing it, My mind immediately went to the MTV video "Money for nothing " by Dire Straits

 

Oh sorry,The video was a cartoon about guys delivering appliances to customers and joking about how rock stars have such a tough life,

 

We do this. I'm not cotton to the costs & business side of the equation so I'll try to stick with the practical end.

If you're just starting out, try and find an Isuzu cabover. They're really good at getting into tighter spots than the M2 (Frieghtliner) and the International. You can pack about 6-8 skids on IIRC. Plus they ride lower to the ground so if you have to lower something by hand it's not as far. I think they get better mileage too. If you buy the truck, weld a "ramp sling" underneath so you can carry a ramp without taking up space inside. Belly boxes for the dollies, pads and other equipment (curbside of course) is not a bad investment either. You want as many anchor points in the truck as possible, the setup they usually put in Ryder/Penske rentals is one 4' strip and one 6' strip (the second of which is #### near worthless) When you have to strap something low, and try to run the strap behind the wooden "runners" on the walls, well they really can't hold anything, we rip those out all the time. Probably want to have about 20 straps, friction straps should be fine, ratchet straps DO work better but once they get damaged they're worthless.

Get some door-protection pads, for some reason they make fridges just to the width of doors, so always look for the widest or most direct route to the kitchen. You're probably going to have to take a few doors off their hinges. Keep about 50' of masonite squares to lay down and protect floors. A good fridge dolly works about the same as a 2 wheel dolly, so if you've got to chose, get the refer dolly first. Probably about 5-6 moving pads should cover everything else. We have HUNDREDS of them on our trucks and I rarely use most of them.

Most laborers prefer to work for cash, I don't know how it's legal either, get a guy who listens to you and is willing to work.
Nothing more annoying than someone who won't take direction, does less work than you, buy still manages to cause $500 in damages!
Frankly if you're a big guy you could probably do half of the work yourself, but you'd be stuck when you needed help. Really shouldn't need more than one other guy.

Nobody expects delivery guys to be intelligent, in fact they often treat us like crap. So be professional and remember that you probably have to impress about 40-100 people to get a single complement.

Good luck.