Nearest my home, most of the yards take most steel and other metal containing items and scrap them as what they refer to as "shred". You can put anything and everything in as shred, as long a it has some type of metal in it. (This may or may not be common to most scrap yards, but I think it's great that I dont have to break the plastic off of a vacuum or something to get steel price for it.) It saves me a lot of time.
I'm pretty lucky when it comes to my trailer. I have a hydraulic dumping trailer, so to unload all my shred I need only a few minutes. I pull onto a giant truck scale, weigh in, dump my shred scrap, weigh out, get paid, all within 5-10 minutes. It's great.
Before I had a dumping trailer, I just had to haul scrap in my truck bed, with homemade wall extensions. It worked ok, but not anything like this. After I bought my trailer, I left it behind as I went out with my truck. When I filled up my truck, I would come home and throw it all into the trailer. Then one day, when the trailer is full, I drive to the yard and scrap it!
Investing in a efficient mode of transportation was important to me. It made cost me money at first, but it really has boosted my productivity, and in the long run was a great investment; Plus, I now have a trailer for hauling anything durring any job, not just scrapping.
Did you buy new or used? Man, I miss the 5x10 trailer I had, it paid for itself eventually. I had to sell it when I moved cross-country and I would love to get a dump-bed style to tow behind my truck.
ReplyDeleteI bought used, and its a beast. I actually stumbled upon it on craigslist. I got it for a very reasonable price, so I knew it would pay for itself soon enough.
ReplyDeleteI have an open utility trailer that works pretty good. The yard just picks it off with the claw. But, I use the trailer for other things too, so I can't just load it as I find the stuff. I would love to have a dump trailer just for scrapping. Like you, I would just pile it in until it was full. It would easily take a step out of the process.
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