What is the best way to dry out your trailer floor.

Picnic

Well-Known Member
I was going to ask what was the best way to dry out your "Reefer", but then I just figured I would not get any answers to my question. :) Since I have never driven a reefer before, the guy I called yesterday told me to make sure that my trailer floor was dry. I will be bringing down a load of boxes from Johnstown Pa to West Palm Beach. I can understand why the floor would need to be dry, but not the best method to use. A floor squeegee or 12 volt blower come to mind, but I really have no idea.
 
I was going to ask what was the best way to dry out your "Reefer", but then I just figured I would not get any answers to my question. :) Since I have never driven a reefer before, the guy I called yesterday told me to make sure that my trailer floor was dry. I will be bringing down a load of boxes from Johnstown Pa to West Palm Beach. I can understand why the floor would need to be dry, but not the best method to use. A floor squeegee or 12 volt blower come to mind, but I really have no idea.


Drying the reefer floor is a recurring problem when you haul both refrigerated and dry freight. Depending upon the weather, the floor can take a long time to completely dry. That being said, some shippers will load a floor that is fairly dry, though maybe not completely dry.

I loaded paper in Maine, explaining to the guy on the dock that I had wanted to arrive earlier but that I wanted to make sure my floor was completely dry before arriving. Now this is rolls of paper on the floor of the trailer. Any moisture on those rolls of paper ruins them. When they are loaded, however, they are loaded on thin rubber mats. They guy told me, "Don't worry too much about it. As long as it's not 'real wet' it's no problem."

You can turn the unit on heat, as high as it will go, but this takes a long time. You can park the trailer with the back facing the wind, and open the doors. The trailer floor will begin drying at the back and gradually dry toward the front, and that is on a dry day with a breeze.

I have run into the problem many times. There is "completely" dry, and there is "damp, but no drops of water" dry. A lot depends on the shipper and the receiver. It's usually not black and white, rather shades of gray. It's usually not wet or dry, rather degrees of dampness.

I play the problem by ear.

It can take a long time for a damp reefer floor to "completely" dry.
 
[MENTION=10924]stonefly[/MENTION] Thank you very much. It helps a lot hearing from someone that does this type of hauling. :yippee2:
 
It's important to find out if the freight will be loaded directly on the floor or on pallets.

Another thing to consider is the walls and ceiling of the trailer. If there is enough moisture inside for the floor to be damp, there can be enough moisture for the walls and ceiling to have droplets on them. This can also be a serious problem depending upon the freight and how it is to be loaded. Moisture on the walls depends upon many factors. If you have just delivered a deep freeze load, then the walls of your reefer are going to be cold all the way through for a while. Because they are cold, any moisture in the air will condense upon them. Many times I have walked the inside of my trailer running my hands over the walls checking for water droplets.

It pays to take care and to find out as much as possible about the freight and how it is to be loaded. I have been dealing with the problem of moisture in the reefer for a lot of years, but because I'm aware of the problem and the possible consequences, I stay on top of it and have never had to turn down a load because of it, and have never had a claim because of it.
 
Depending on time... the above will work.

If you are crunching it... send the sucker into the Antarctic range of -20 or colder, dampness has a way of turning into frost and as soon as you open the doors at the shippers... they usually get a blast of COLD FROST... or the floor is a lil' slick.

If I get a washout a couple hours before a dry load goes in... FREEZE....

otherwise... crank the heat up. leave the peekaboo door open and let nature (kinda) take it's course.

I should add this; the wettest the box gets is washing it out. loads are either frozen or cooled and if you are dripping going across a scale you will likely wind up in back explaining yerself.
 
Make sure the drain holes aren't corked. See if you can park on a hill so the water runs towards the drain holes. That'll get rid of most of it.

Then fire that thing up, set it as hot as it'll go, on continuous run mode, and wait til the box temp is up close to the set-point, then open the doors & pin them open for about 10 minutes. Leave the reefer running because it sucks air into the unit in front, and blows it out towards the rear. With the doors open, it'll draw air in from down low, across the wet floor, get sucked into the unit & blown out the air chute on the ceiling.

When it's hot in the reefer, that water turns to steam. So when you open the doors & allow it to exchange air with the outside, it'll blow that steam out.

They're usually not THAT picky with the trailer being 100% dry unless you're loading paper or salt, or anything that can get moldy like furniture.
 
Ok, I'm just a little curious at this point. I know nothing about refer hauling but.....

It's just a big ass AC unit right? An AC unit is a dehumidifier first then an air conditioner. Same thing as the defrosters in your truck and car. You can run your AC on high heat and it hanks out the moisture from the air big time. I would think an AC unit as big as one on a refer could suck the moisture out of a van really fast?
 
Ok, I'm just a little curious at this point. I know nothing about refer hauling but.....

It's just a big ass AC unit right? An AC unit is a dehumidifier first then an air conditioner. Same thing as the defrosters in your truck and car. You can run your AC on high heat and it hanks out the moisture from the air big time. I would think an AC unit as big as one on a refer could suck the moisture out of a van really fast?


Yer a quick study!

It heats,

It Cools,

It Freezes.

... but wait!....


I save a bunch at the laundry by omitting the dryer. Load locks n' hangers BABY!

Fergot t' mention... it's a starting service, battery charger........ on and on and on......
 
Ok, I'm just a little curious at this point. I know nothing about refer hauling but.....

It's just a big ass AC unit right? An AC unit is a dehumidifier first then an air conditioner. Same thing as the defrosters in your truck and car. You can run your AC on high heat and it hanks out the moisture from the air big time. I would think an AC unit as big as one on a refer could suck the moisture out of a van really fast?

It's basically a diesel-powered air conditioner. But there's a FWD-REV gearbox between the engine & the compressor for heating.

Let's say you're hauling "fresh" pork. Meat doesn't freeze at 32 deg like water, we haul "un-frozen" meat at 26-28 degrees. But when it's zero degrees outside, that reefer unit has to heat the trailer. It just runs the compressor backwards so the condenser becomes the evaporator, and the evaporator becomes the condenser.

It would be more fuel efficient if the units just shut down and something like a torpedo heater took over, but whatever... I guess the diesel engine would still need to run to keep it's battery charged and to run the fan for air circulation though.

I save a bunch at the laundry by omitting the dryer. Load locks n' hangers BABY!

:rolllaugh:
 
Park on an incline with the tail on the downhill end and pull any plugs in the rear drain holes. Turn the reefer on continuous at 45°F. The cooler air will dehumidify the compartment than warm air while the constantly moving air will cause the water to evaporate.

That's how I always did it, but it will take a few hours.
 
I'm delivering 5 pork combos at this place in Chicago, and my 2nd stop is 16 pallets of boxed product.

Pork combos are a topless cardboard box the size that a washer/dryer would come in, stapled to a pallet, with a big plastic bag full of big chunks of dead pigs. The bag is tied shut. Those things always leak blood & guts all over the trailer floor.

So I'll probably need a washout before I go home. I'll try drying it at 45 degrees & see how long it takes to dry out.

Unless I forget about it and leave it running for 22 hours like I did last week, ...
 
I'm delivering 5 pork combos at this place in Chicago, and my 2nd stop is 16 pallets of boxed product.

Pork combos are a topless cardboard box the size that a washer/dryer would come in, stapled to a pallet, with a big plastic bag full of big chunks of dead pigs. The bag is tied shut. Those things always leak blood & guts all over the trailer floor.

So I'll probably need a washout before I go home. I'll try drying it at 45 degrees & see how long it takes to dry out.

Unless I forget about it and leave it running for 22 hours like I did last week, ...

I just gotta washout, set point at -10, hour and a half later I back into dock 10, swing em open and... Dry.
 
I just gotta washout, set point at -10, hour and a half later I back into dock 10, swing em open and... Dry.

I just went and got "warshed" out. The weather is nice today, and above 32 degrees, so naturally the Blue Beacon was backed up with Pete 379's and W900's that were already sparkling clean, ... meaning that each one of those guys were going to sit there & hold up the line while they nit-pick over every little hard water stain that some other Blue Beacon a thousand miles away left behind, ...

So I went across the street. No line at all at the Petro.

This is funny, ... this guy, big guy, 'bout my size, little taller, .. opened my trailer doors & SCREAMED like a little girl. He came & got me & said there's a mouse in the trailer. So I got in there & the thing ran into the plastic bulkhead thing where the unit draws in the air at the bottom. The redhead dude was afraid to wash out the trailer because it might bite him & give him rabies. I said I oughta just fire up the unit & let him take a little ride through the blower fan. Right as I said that, the mouse came running back out of there, right past my feet making a bee-line straight for the tail of the trailer, where he jumped out, .. landed on the ground & kept running across the parking lot.

Anyway so I got home & was gonna leave the thing running at 45 degrees for a while but instead I just pinned the doors open cuz the wind is blowing right up the trailer's butt & it's about 48 degrees out here.
 
I had to wash out a dry van in Atlanta once because a bunch of dry pool chemicals spilled in it. I parked with the tail down hill and the doors latched open. It took less than two hours for it to dry. The next customer was very happy with the trailer.
 

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