Moving-Floor Trailers

March/April 2011

Trailers equipped with moving-floor technology are finding greater favor in the recycling industry thanks to the unique benefits they offer.

By Jim Fowler

If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. In the scrap industry, if you invent a new way to unload a trailer, recyclers will find the best ways to use it. For years recyclers have relied on dump trailers, which use a tilting mechanism and gravity to unload material, but another option—trailers with moving floors—is gaining popularity. Scrap companies use trailers with this technology to deliver a wide array of scrap material, from car hulks to shredded paper and more. Manufacturers and users tout the equipment’s efficiency, safety, versatility, and durability. Here’s a look at how moving floors work, how recyclers are using them, and why some companies prefer them over dump trailers.

A Technology Is Born

Moving-floor technology emerged in the 1970s, when inventors Ole Hallstrom and Keith Foster, partners based in Tillamook, Ore., sought a new way to unload feed, seed, and fertilizer in the agricultural industry. When their partnership ended, the two became competitors, with Hallstrom founding Hallco Industries in Tillamook and Foster starting Keith Manufacturing Co. in Madras, Ore. Hallco bills its product as “the original Live Floor® system,” while Keith says its Walking Floor® system is “the first name in self-unloading.” Today they remain the only two companies in the United States that manufacture moving-floor systems.

The Keith and Hallco systems work using the same principle—friction. Slats, installed lengthwise down a trailer floor, slide via hydraulically powered cylinders. When all the slats move in one direction, the load moves in that direction. After that initial movement, every third slat resets to its original position while the other two-thirds of the slats hold the load in place. The process works because there’s more friction holding the load than moving it. The resetting process is repeated with the other slats until they are all in their original position, then the slats slide in unison again to move the load. The reset cycle then starts again until the loading or unloading process is complete.

Though Hallco and Keith representatives acknowledge that their technologies are similar, they point to distinctions in the design and production of their floors. Hallco, for instance, uses hydraulic hoses to convey hydraulic fluid; Keith prefers steel tubing. Hallco’s systems feature solid hydraulic cylinder shafts; Keith’s have hollow cylinder shafts. It’s up to the buyers to weigh the pros and cons of such distinctions for their particular needs and applications.

Notably, neither company constructs or sells trailers; instead, they sell their systems in kit form to trailer manufacturers. The specifications for each moving-floor system vary based on the size of the trailer and the material to be hauled. Mike Snyder, general manager of Wilkens Industries (Morris, Minn.), a trailer manufacturer, says his initial questions to prospective moving-floor trailer customers are, What are you hauling? How far are you hauling it? And are you concerned about the trailer’s weight (which affects payload capacity)? On that last question, Mike Kloepfer, president of Titan Trailers (Delhi, Ontario), notes that moving-floor trailers “have a tendency to be lighter, which turns into more payload, which turns into more revenue.”

Typically the moving-floor slats are made of aluminum in various widths and thicknesses depending on the customer’s intended use. About seven years ago Keith introduced its patented V-Floor® system. Today it is available in an 18-slat aluminum version and a nine-slat version made of aluminum or Domex high-carbon steel, either 1/8-inch or 5/32-inch thick. According to Keith, the V-shaped design allows the slats to “absorb maximum impact and stand up to extremely abrasive materials.” Titan Trailers, for one, designed a trailer in 2004 featuring the Keith V-Floor system to handle automotive stampings, shredded scrap, white goods, and shredder fluff. The moving-floor system is not suitable for heavy-melt steel scrap, however, Kloepfer says.

In terms of cost, moving-floor prices can range from $10,000 to $23,000, depending on the configuration of the system. Factors affecting the price include drive design, trailer length, and choice of floor style, such as aluminum or steel. Installation costs also vary by trailer manufacturer and whether the system is installed in a new trailer or retrofitted. Installation could run as much as $5,000 for an existing trailer; less if the manufacturer installs the floor as it builds the trailer. Louis Padnos Iron & Metal Co. (Holland, Mich.) is one scrap company that builds its own trailers, and the Hallco Live Floor feature adds about $20,000 to the cost, says Jim Ward, maintenance supervisor for Padnos’ Alpine Division.

Finding a Niche in Scrap

Though Hallstrom and Foster designed moving-floor technology for agricultural applications, it gained popularity in the solid waste industry in the 1980s, and that niche continues to be a major market. Recyclers have been slower to embrace the technology, but those who use it seem to become repeat customers.

Tire recycling company Colt (Scott, La.) has used Hallco’s Live Floor system for 26 years, usually to haul and unload shredded tires at landfills and construction sites, says Kip Vincent, the company’s president. E.L. Harvey & Sons (Westborough, Mass.) is another longtime fan of moving-floor trailers, having used them for the past 20 years. Currently the company operates a dozen Steco trailers with Keith Walking Floor technology. “They are the best equipment in the world for the materials we handle—solid waste, paper, corrugated, and scrap metal,” says Ben Harvey, executive vice president. He appreciates the versatility of the moving-floor technology, he says, in handling material in different forms—“baled, palletized, and loose”—and various commodities. “They give us the flexibility of handling a multitude of materials.” Padnos first used a Hallco Live Floor trailer 10 years ago, and now it has five. Similarly, Triple M Metal (Brampton, Ontario) has more than a dozen Keith V-Floor trailers, which it uses to haul a variety of scrap.

In the scrap paper sector, Newark America (Fitchburg, Mass.) operates 12 trailers with aluminum Keith Walking Floor systems in Fitchburg and another four at other operations, primarily in the Boston area, notes Chris Paquette, operations manager for the firm’s Northeast Recycled Fibers Division. The company uses the trailers to haul loose scrap paper to its Fitchburg mill, which is designed to consume 100-percent loose—rather than baled—fiber.

Moving-floor trailers also have found favor in the automotive recycling sector because they ease both the loading and the unloading of crushed car hulks and other automotive scrap. Otsego Auto Crushers (Oneonta, N.Y.) has five steel Keith V-Floor trailers to haul flattened auto bodies, light iron, and shredded scrap, says Wayne Hymers Sr., the company’s president. Gary’s U-Pull-It (Binghamton, N.Y.) likewise runs one Keith V-Floor system with a steel floor and has an older aluminum-floor trailer in reserve.

Even as moving-floor trailers gain popularity in traditional scrap niches, they also are building their presence in the specialized document-shredding market. Both Hallco and Keith sell their moving-floor technologies for use in mobile document-shredding trucks. Shred-Tech Corp. (Cambridge, Ontario) offers six models of shredding trucks and three models of collection trucks, all of which use moving floors. “We were probably the first to introduce moving floors into mobile shredding trucks going back, sporadically, as long as 15 years ago,” says Joe Roberto, vice president of sales and marketing. “About seven years ago we made a shift [to] the majority of our production being moving floors; in the last six years it’s been exclusively moving floors.”

Assessing the Advantages

As the abovementioned recyclers—and many others—have found, moving-floor trailers are versatile tools that offer several benefits and advantages over dump trailers.

No tip-overs. Moving-floor trailers eliminate the potential for truck tip-overs that exists with dump trailers, especially when unloading material on uneven or soft ground. That means “you don’t have to have as experienced a driver as is required for a dump trailer,” Kloepfer says. “The moving floor is a much safer way to dump a load in the scrap industry.”

No ceiling worries. Recyclers also appreciate how moving-floor trailers eliminate worries about ceiling heights or overhead hazards such as power lines—in their own facilities as well as their customers’ locations—which can limit the unloading ability of dump trailers. Prior to using moving floors in its document-shredding trucks, Shred-Tech used dump bodies for the same tasks. “That worked well for many years,” Roberto says, but inadequate ceiling height became a “limiting factor. With the moving floor, ceiling height is not an issue.”

Fast, easy unloading. When comparing the unloading speed of moving-floor trailers against dump trailers, recyclers look at the issue in two ways. First, there’s the time it takes the trailer to clear its load. On this point, some recyclers—such as Padnos’ Ward—claim “the time to unload is roughly the same—six to eight minutes,” while others—such as Colt’s Vincent—say a dump trailer “might be a little quicker.” But recyclers also consider other factors when assessing delivery efficiency that, for some, give moving-floor trailers an advantage.

Several recyclers point out that moving-floor trailers can unload without assistance material that otherwise might require a magnet or grapple. For Gary Beagell, president of Gary’s U-Pull-It, this means “we don’t have to wait,” he explains. “We go directly to the unloading area [because] we don’t need the buyer to unload us with a crane. We don’t use the crane operator’s time, and we don’t have to worry about the grapple or magnet damaging our tall trailer sides while unloading our cars.” Harvey agrees that “unloading light iron at a shredder [with] a moving floor beats a dump trailer. The shredder operator doesn’t have to unload it with a magnet.” For Otsego’s Hymers, this has created additional opportunities for his company to move material. “We walk the material out at the shredder, and quite often we’ll get a load of shred to haul to the mill, where we also walk out the material,” he says.

Improved efficiencies. Some recyclers say that moving-floor trailers have improved the efficiency of their own operations. When Padnos’ moving-floor trailers return with loads of aluminum scrap, for example, the company “backs them into our building and walks the material onto a conveyor that moves it to the baler,” Ward says. “You couldn’t do that with a dump trailer unless you have 40-foot ceilings. Another advantage is you can control how fast you unload the material onto the conveyor by monitoring the tractor’s rpm.”

In the same way, Triple M uses its moving-floor trailers to “walk clips onto a concrete pad adjacent to the baler so the crane never stops feeding the baler—it doesn’t have to unload the trailer,” says Nelson Costa, director of operations at the company’s Brampton, Ontario, yard. “Plus, the driver doesn’t have to leave the tractor.”

Padnos’ customers also appreciate receiving material via moving-floor trailer. The company delivers shredded scrap to some mill consumers in its Hallco Live Floor trailers, and “the mills love it,” Ward says. “We can back the trailers farther into the building, so there’s less handling.”

Secure cargo hauling. Because moving-floor systems usually are installed in multi-sided trailers or trailers that are completely enclosed, recyclers that use such systems have few, if any, worries about cargo securement requirements. This is an especially attractive benefit for auto dismantlers, who must abide by specific cargo securement rules when hauling flattened car hulks on flatbeds and other exposed trailer types. “The advantages of hauling flattened autos in a moving-floor trailer are that you don’t have to bind them down and tarp them,” says Otsego’s Hymers. Explaining how his company uses moving floors with automotive scrap, Beagell says that “we just slide the cars in, and away we go. It’s so much quicker than loading a flatbed and trying to bind it down. As long as the material isn’t visible on the top, we don’t have to cover it.”

Beagell points to other operational advantages to using moving-floor trailers in the automotive scrap niche, noting that the configuration of the V-Floor system makes it easy to slide car hulks into the trailer. “When we flatten cars,” he explains, “we turn the first car upside down so the roof and the hood—the smooth side—is down on the trailer floor. That way you don’t have pieces of the suspension protruding down that would get caught in the floor. We get enough contact with the floor that it moves the cars in and out.”

Minimal maintenance. Though maintenance varies based on the user, recyclers generally agree that moving-floor systems require little upkeep. Beagell says he has averaged three loads a day in a V-Floor trailer for the past three years, and the trailer shows minimal wear. Hymers likewise has performed “almost no maintenance” on his V-Floor trailers, while Paquette says Newark’s moving-floor trailers have delivered “tremendous” maintenance performance. One reason Shred-Tech likes to install moving floors in its document-shredding trucks, Roberto says, is that they are “very robust. They hold up for a long time and are reliable. From a durability and longevity standpoint, it’s a no-brainer.”As Titan’s Kloepfer remarks, “It’s a hydraulic-driven system, so if you keep the oil clean and change the filters, the system will run.”

Users say they typically have to replace the slats about every five years. The slats wear out fastest in the last 10 feet of the trailer, Colt’s Vincent points out. “You could get heavier floors, but the added weight cuts down on your net haul.” Instead, his company welds ¼-inch aluminum wear plates to the aluminum slats on the last 10 feet of the floor. “That way,” he says, “we’re only adding weight to 25 percent of the floor. When the plate wears out, we can replace it without replacing the entire floor.” The cost for this fix, he says, is “probably less than $1,000, and it extends the slats’ life considerably.”

A Growing Presence

Given their many benefits, moving-floor trailers appear poised to expand their foothold in the recycling market. “I see the use of moving floors continuing to grow in certain sectors of the scrap industry,” Kloepfer says. Titan Trailers already has installed moving floors in “a couple of hundred trailers being used in the industry,” he adds. Though Keith considers its Walking Floor systems “still relatively new to the scrap industry,” the company’s sales to that sector were growing every year until the recent economic downturn, says Jack Skidgel, the firm’s Southwest sales representative. As the economy regains momentum, interest in moving-floor trailers likewise could pick up, as recyclers in various niches continue to find reasons to use the technology—and as current moving-floor customers give the product such rave reviews. As Harvey puts it, “we’re extremely pleased with the moving-floor systems, and our use of them will continue to grow. They’re a great tool for our industry.”

Jim Fowler is retired publisher and editorial director of Scrap.