Re Flooring a 53 ft dry van trailer

a complete floor replacement is almost always more money than a used trailer is worth.

 

Cost me over $600 to re-floor a 54 square foot dressing room in a horse trailer that we're converting to a living quarters...but that included the sub-floor and 3/4" natural Hickory hardwood flooring...with the hardware (screws, nails, etc.) to do the installation. Doubt you'd do anything quite that fancy in a semi trailer, but you're talking 442 square feet. Even if you can do the entire job for half the cost per square foot, you're still looking at a price tag of nearly $2500.

 

I made a repair on one few years ago, I couldn't even imagine what the cost and time to replace entire floor. Some cross members will need to be replaced especially around the tandems and landing gears. The bolts are very stubborn and time consuming. I would sell to someone needing storage trailers and hunt a newer trailer. Cracks is common to see daylight but if you are experiencing rot, just as soon as a forklift breaks through they are gonna eat your lunch.

 

The cost of the flooring will depend on how many stripper poles you are putting in and the size of the Jacuzzi. After the cherry wood mini bar goes in you might have a little room left over for freight.

 

A few months ago I checked on putting a new floor on my 53' step deck. An apitong floor will cost about $3,000 for materials and another $2,500-3,000 for labor. You might find another type of wood that will work for less, but apitong is what most use.

 

Call Randy at Quality Truck & Trailer 602-931-7208 or Bob at R Kay Truck Parts 602-670-6216

They both have experience replacing floors.

 

apitong is for open decks. Dry vans use 1 3/8 oak or composite. Some older stoughtons and such have 1 1/4 flooring.

Why are you looking to replace the entire floor?

1 3/8 oak is just shy of $7 a linear foot. A complete floor replace is a 40 hour book job.

A typical floor will have 8 boards unless you have a double hat rail, then you might have 7 boards and 2- 2/3 boards which you will pay for 9.

Labor should be in the $2000-$4000 range depending on what part of the country you are. And unfortunately floor screws are sold by the each not the lb like rivets. Roughly 1000 screws around $.65 each

 

I wondered about this when I was trailer shopping and found this post from another thread helpful:

link:
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...ruckers-advice/175196-replace-or-refloor.html

 

I would dump a van needing extensive repairs such as this and buy new.