Logistics
Why we weigh every trailer twice
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Pallets are the freight most likely to surprise somebody on a scale. They are bulky, they look light, and they absorb water like a towel.
A dry 48" x 40" hardwood pallet weighs about 34 lb. Six hundred of them is 20,400 lb, which is comfortable in any 53' van. The same six hundred after a wet October in an uncovered yard can run 27,000 lb, and that is before you count the trailer.
The two weighings
- 1
Empty, on arrival
Tractor and trailer across the yard scale before loading. This gives us a true tare for that specific combination rather than a plate figure.
- 2
Loaded, before departure
The same combination across the same scale with the doors shut. The difference is the load, and the ticket goes with the paperwork.
It takes about six minutes in total. It has caught genuinely dangerous loads perhaps four times a year, and it has caught loads that were merely over-limit considerably more often than that.
What people get wrong
- Assuming the pallets are dry. Moisture content in a Front Range yard swings between about 9% and 28% across a year. That is a 25% weight swing on the same pallets.
- Using a plate tare. The tare on a trailer plate is the trailer as built, not the trailer with a toolbox, two load bars, a pallet of straps and eleven years of accumulated everything.
- Ignoring axle distribution. A trailer can be legal on gross weight and illegally heavy on the drives. Pallets stacked to the nose are the classic way to do this.
- Forgetting banding and dunnage. Steel banding on 30 lots is not nothing, and neither is a pallet of load bars.
How we load to keep the axles honest
| Pallet condition | Approx. weight each | 600 units | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry hardwood, Grade A | 34 lb | 20,400 lb | Comfortable |
| Dry hardwood, Grade B | 36 lb | 21,600 lb | Extra repair lumber adds weight |
| Damp hardwood | 41 lb | 24,600 lb | Check axle distribution |
| Saturated hardwood | 47 lb | 28,200 lb | Reduce count or split the load |
| Dry softwood | 28 lb | 16,800 lb | Rarely a weight problem |
| Euro pallets | 55 lb | n/a — count by weight | Reaches limits fast |
| Block pallets | 70 lb | n/a | Usually weight-limited, not volume-limited |
The customer-facing bit
If we load your trailer, you get the weight ticket and the photographs of the loaded trailer. If you load ours, the driver will ask you to stop at 550 units rather than 600 on a wet week, and it is not because we are being difficult.
It costs us maybe forty minutes a week across the whole fleet. Compared with one citation, one re-load in a scale-house layby, or one trailer that does not stop properly on the descent from the Eisenhower Tunnel, it is the best-value habit in the yard.