Using a landscape trailer for hauling mulch

[Evan528]

This year I will be using my new 16ft landscape trailer for hauling mulch instead of using the back of my truck. I am planning on just bolting 4ft high plywood to the sides of the trailer so that the mulch dosnt fall out. Does any body have any pictures of there trailer with sides just so i can get some ideas? Thanks for your help!

[Getmow]

No pictures but a suggestion. Check the gvwr of the trailer, axles and tires. You will probably find that 2'sides or less will be sufficient.

[lawnboy82]

i have done that when my truck bed was full. i only put like 2 yards of mulch on there though. but i have put on 2 yards of stone. that worked well. no sides. just dumped it right on there. you can do it. just be carefull where you put the bulk of the material, that you can tow it, that you have your brake activator. and that stuff. it works ok. i like doing it. beats having to load up my pickup truck with a yard of gravel at a time and being overload.

[bob]

I enclosed the side rails on my trailer (12" high). If I'm doing a small mulch job I'll use my trailer. But if its more mulch than 1 trailer load I'll have it delivered. 4 foot high sides is a lot of mulch. You may want to reconcider.

[Ssouth]

I have a 16 ft trailer with 18" sides. I can get 8 yards on the trailer with no problem. I just use the canvas tarp to cover it and I'm ready to go. I think any more than 8 yds. would be too much.

[Evan528]

Wow!!! 8 yards!! What is your trailers gvw? The reason im thinking about 4 ft sides is because that way I can haul alot more brush. I didnt think a standard 16ft trailer could safly hold more than 5 or 6 yards of mulch. By the way... mine is tube construction if that has any influence on the amount of weight I can haul.....

[Yardworks]

Evan

Your trailer should have a gvw printed on an identification tag along with serial #, model #, etc, unless it's home made. I'm lucky to have a 5 yard dump truck for mulch and rock. The hydraulic lift sure makes for much easier unloading.

[plow kid]

A little over weight?,.....maybe......might be.........who cares.



We had a guy come to us for firewood this winter, he brought a trailer made out of 4"x8" square steel tubing with 3 axles, he said to load her up and I put around 5 tons of logs on it and he said to keep going she can take about 20 tons, so I kept going, after he had 12 tons on it he said woah, so he paid me and went to pull out and when the first axle went over the curb it went BANG! then the 2nd went over and went BANG! same with the third. who did he ***** at ,..... you guessed it!
















http://unionturf.com/hehehmn.gif Load her til she breaks http://unionturf.com/hehehmn.gif

[Edited by plow kid on 03-30-2001 at 11:05 PM]

[Ssouth]

8 yds. yes., I have only done this twice because I normally have it delivered. No probs. with the with weight. About the GVW of my trailer I'm not sure but it's made out of 3" round tubing along the top and 4" * 4" angle iron for the base with a wrap-around tongue.

[little green guy]

I use my trailer for mulch too. I have a 6.5 by 14' tandem with like 16" sides on it. I can carry 3 yards with no problem and almost 4 yards, then like two in the back of the truck. I can carry between 5-6 yards in one trip. For the sides all I did was cut plywood the same hieght at the rails and blot it onto the tube rails.

I work with another company sometimes that has a 2000 F550 with a 12' grain body. They can put 12 yards in that truck, it takes the nursery like 15-20 minuts just to load the truck.

[John DiMartino]

I regularly put 5 yds in my old 1 ton dump truck,and 4 in my 3/4 ton Dodge I had-I never weighed them,but they handled it better than 2 yds of stone-which puts my old dump truck at 10,700 lbs-700 over weight.I had 8 yd on my 18 ft trailer,its a 10000 Gvwr,didnt even phase it.Anyone know about how much a yd of wet mulch weighs?.That would make it easy to estimate the weight.

[Sammy]

Everyone should know the GVWR of their trailers. Then you wont have to guess.

[Evan528]

My trailers gvw is 7000 lbs. I have no idea what a yard of mulch weighs though!

[Toad]

It's not how well your trailer is built it's how much weight your axels will withstand to . Usually 3500lbs per axel . Most dual axel trailers are 7000 gvw , but you have to consider the weight of the trailer itself on the axel.

[SDF250]

The guy i get mulch from said it weighs between 900-1200 #'s

[Island Lawn]

Unless you buy mulch from a covered facility, a lot of the weight can be water. If it has just rained for 3 days, a yard of mulch can be much heavier than it would be during a drought.

Of course, the water holding ability of the particular mulch must be considered.

The point is: weight per yard can fluctuate.

My $.025!

[TALLEY-HOE]

I USED 4'PLYWOOD ON ONE OF MY TRAILERS. I WENT OVERWEIGHT. LEAD SPRING BROKE, AXLE BENT, ALL KINDS OF NOISE!!! NEEDLESS TO SAY--I LEARNED MY LESSON. LUCKY NO ONE WAS HURT. I PULLED, (AS IN DRAGGING), IT ONE MILE TO MY HOUSE.

[Roger]

I'm a small operator, using a 5X10 trailer, 3,000 GVW with 5.30X12 tires. I haul 3 cu yds of double shredded hardwood bark mulch (hauled three loads today), but consider that about maximum weight. I would estimate the mulch I use to be about 900# per cu yd. With the small trailer, I don't have much slack in weight, so must be careful.

As a side note, one time I asked for double shredded, but the yard only had triple and single shredded. They offered my triple for same price as double - I took it. That material was considerably heavier than double shredded - too much weight for my trailer!

I have 30" sides (to haul leaves in the Fall), but only would need 12-18" sides for mulch.

[jimsmowin]

you can figure about 1,000 lbs. per. yard

[Evan528]

Today a buddy of mine helped me put on plywood sides. We wound up making them 24 inches high all around. I will paint the ply wood back when I get a cahnce to match the trailer. Thanks for all your help! I will post pictures after I pain it!

[Chopper Lover]

Go to a hardware store and see how much a 2 cubic foot bag of mulch weighs....

Since there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard, multiply the weight of the bag by 14 and subtract half the weight of one bag. That will give you a good estimated weight of a cubic yard of mulch with normal moisture content.

Next, determine the actual weight of your trailer and subtract that from the GVWR. Now you know how much weight you can carry and load the mulch accordingly.

Mark

[Ssouth]

Great idea, but I've found the moisture content of bagged muclh to be more than bulk mulch in my area. I have no idea why. I've only used bagged mulch twice for large jobs. I always appox. the weight of mulch at 1000#/yd. This is a general weight which will vary with type of mulch. This is just the general rule I use.

[Evan528]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Evan528
[B]well here is the picture of my trailer and the sides that I took today! Should look alot nicer once its painted black!


<img src="http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=993086&a=11690982&p=45365506&Sequence=0&res=high">

<img src="http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=993086&a=11690982&p=45365087&f=0">




[Edited by Evan528 on 03-31-2001 at 10:36 PM]

[AltaLawnCare]

I've thought about using my 16' for mulch also. I saw a crew last week with a 16 or 18' with the front half loaded with mulch, the boards looked about 4' high with nothing on the rear of the trailer.

[jeffyr]

I found info on weight dry and wet per yd

Compost- Dry 1100lbs, wet 1500lbs.
Mulch dry 500lbs, wet 800lbs.
Topsoil dry 1500, wet 1800lbs.

This information is from an organic waste site.

I think the topsoil is high. I recently picked up bagged mulch and they put a pallett on my truck with 51 3 cu ft. bags on. that's over 5 yards ( or estimated 4000 lbs) on a 4x4 pallett. I think that the truck handled like it had less than 2 yards of topsoil in it. That was one high stack on the back of the truck.

[CCLC]

We have a 16' landscape trailer with 4' plywood sides. We love having the 4' sides to carry big loads of brush. We have also been know to carry as much as 11 yards of mulch. In the fall we use it as a leaf clean up trailer. We put the leaf vac on the tail gate and fill it up to the top. The worst that has ever happened is that we broke a spring. They are easy to fix and worth the trouble.

[TALLEY-HOE]

TRAILER LOOKS GREAT, BUT I SUGGEST NEXT TIME USING GOOD PLYWOOD INSTEAD OF PARTICLE BOARD. COMPRESSED WOOD CHIPS TEND TO DETERIORATE FASTER.

[Redmowers]

Have any of you snowplowers ever thought of using your sander for hauling mulch? Just remove the spinner ,pull your wheelbarrow under it auto fill it.Just a thought to get some use out it during the summer.Then attach a blower where the spinner chute goes and blow it where it goes it could be made I would think.I saw the huge version in Turf big $$$$$.$$ I guess

[Skookum]

Trailer sides turned out very well! It looks nice! Looks like you did a very smart looking install job, not like some I have seen where they were just thrown on there.

The OSB wood that you used is coated with a moisture resistance agent that will last for just a very very short time. This is especially true for any cuts ends that you have removed the end coating which is where the material is most likely to absorb water. It is coated at the mill to protect from moisture at the lumberyard and on the job site.

A good coat of paint will help them last for several years if you really make sure you coat the cut ends very good with a buildup of paint. A true CDX plywood would have been a better investment in time and money since they would last for many, many years longer when painted.

Looks great though!

[jrodgers]

Also make sure the tires are rated for the weight the trailer can hold mine actually came with ones that were a little light...