Vehicle capacity

What kind of vehicle do you use? For those that would like to participate... Can you kindly measure the cargo area of your vehicle height x width x length. ( for example the trailer I use is 16' long It's 85" wide and I have 4 ' sides on it I'm averaging about 2700 lbs each weighing) This is for general steel hauling. Not heavy melt or vehicle hauling. If you could also tell how much your typical load weighs. I'm trying to find out what an average cubic foot of general steel weighs. I know this varies but with a large enough sample it can be approximate. Thanks...

My appliance trailer is about 18 cubic yards. When it's stacked right, I average about 3200 pounds a load. The 4 yard dumpster bin the yard gives me holds about 5000 pounds of compressor bodies.

At 25' x 8' with no walls, I average right around 5 tons, when hauling iron.

How high would you say the loads are typically stacked, c45f?

Usually around 10-12 ft. from the ground, but my trailer deck is around 2.5 ft. Today's tallest point was right at 12'. Was 2 compact cars on top of a load of tin......11,300#.........5,220# of it was tin.

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x.../IMAG00014.jpg

Awsome picture!

Thanks. When you live as far out in the sticks as I do, you have to make every load count.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by c4f5

Usually around 10-12 ft. from the ground, but my trailer deck is around 2.5 ft. Today's tallest point was right at 12'. Was 2 compact cars on top of a load of tin......11,300#.........5,220# of it was tin.

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x.../IMAG00014.jpg

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Nice load.

If you crush the roofs in you'll have more room. You can get another car on this one easy, if not two. It's pretty easy to crush them down to the firewall.

EDIT:
Make sure to crush them on the ground. This way you won't put any additional stress on the trailer.

Nice tip. I appreciate it. I have tried it a couple times in the past, and I don't do it for a couple reasons. I work from home, and although it does happen, I try to avoid breaking any glass in the drive.....happy wife = happy life :) My trailer starts complaining when it gets over 6 tons on it. I also get paid more for cars than I do for shred, so I split the roofs of the cars to stuff as much shred in as I can and get paid car weight for it. The red '89 Toyota Corolla on the back weighed 3320#. The blue mid 80's Nissan Sentra up front had no engine or transmission and still weighed 2760#, after they clawed the stuffed wash machine out as shred. And last. but not least, my loader only goes up to 10.5' with the forks flat.

One day soon, I hope to remedy the wimpy trailer syndrome.

I usually put four or five tires in the car before I crush it. The yard allows five tires per car and they don't have to be the original but they can't be tractor or truck tires. I have a bucket on my machine so I crush with that and have to bucket chain cars to load.

When I crush, I start with my bucket as far forward as possible, come from the side and push the center of the roof in. Then I get the bucket on the far side door and pull that in on top of the roof. Then I back up and push the near side door in on top of the roof. Finally, I flatten the bucket and crush the whole shebang.

For the glass I minimize a mess by simply rolling the windows down. It still breaks, but it's contained in the door. You could also put a tarp under the car and fold the tarp full of broken glass at the end. Windshields usually don't shatter.

Make sure you don't overload your trailer and break an axle or something, and lose your money maker. A guy can't make any money if he has to constantly fix his equipment.