How to get pallets off trailer

That looks as though that is intended to raise a pallet to table height, to make transferring goods easier. I don't think it will do what you want. What you need is a pallet stacker truck:

When my roofers had pallets of tiles delivered, the lorry they came on had a Hiab style crane, with pallet forks and simply unloaded them where the roofers wanted them.

Thanks Colin. Yes a manual pallet stacker does seem what I need. I have found one for hire at a decent price but not anywhere near me. Will look some more.

I did have another idea on how the high lift pallet truck might help. I have some left over concrete blocks (aerated / celcon) . I could create a platform at trailer height out of them essentially 5 blocks wide to support pallet forks pallet forks pallet ). Push the pallet off the trailer onto the blocks and set the pallet onto some timber. Remove the pallet truck. Now remove the blocks under where the pallet truck forks / wheels. Take the pallet truck onto the drive and lift it up to take the pallet. Move it off the platform then lower it. If the truck doesn't move at that height then could remove all the blocks and lower it. It is only 4 pallets so effort much less than carrying them all off manually.

Any thoughts on this idea?

The first question is whether the chap delivering would be willing to wait around while you do all that four times? IME delivery drivers like to be stopped for as short a time as possible.

Also, if it is a trailer that is capable of carrying four tonnes, it has to be a lorry trailer, which means the bed will be fairly high. Not only do I doubt that the lifter would go that high, if I understand you right, at some point the pallet will be sitting on two, fairly high, blockwork walls and I would be dubious about how stable that setup would be. I can see potential for you ending up under a tonne of tiles.

Overall, I would recommend against it.

Can you get them delivered by a lorry with Moffet truck?

The small lorries that deliver here all have hydraulic tailgates. The driver loads his pallet truck onto the horizontal tailgate and is then lowered to ground level by the truck hydraulics.

Be a surprise if a lorry delivering 4 tons on pallets to a domestic address does not have this facility.

That's how my last pallet delivery was made, with a lorry with a hydraulic tailgate.

Just be aware that a lot of delivery companies state that they will only deliver to the pavement* unless they have a lorry with some type of crane to lift goods over a wall etc. If it's not too much of a hassle they may consider a car driveway as a definition of the pavement. A low platform pallet truck doesn't work too well on rough or uneven ground.

That is the normal way.

In the 24 years of having pallets delivered to both our business premesis and direct to customers this has never been an issue.

All pallet companies typically deliver on lorries with a tail lift and the driver uses either a manul or, more often these days, an electically powered (drive wheels) pallet truck.

The pallet delivery company is contracted to deliver to "kerbside" so until the pallet has landed on the road/path it's not been delivered.

Our shop has no rear access to the limited warehouse, it has a parked out layby road in front so all pallets are delivered to one end of the pavement or the other and wheeled up the flat (has to be flat, not raised an inch) kerb and pallet trucked along the footpath to the front of our shop.

Of course, if the delivery is a private sale and the delivery person is bringing them on some form of unsuitable "trailer" (sounds like a car trailer perhaps?) then I would advise you simply get a suitable discount from the supplying company/individual and get a proper transport company to collect/deliver. Typical cost of a single full pallet these days (2023) is around £70-£90 but 4 might lower the price a tad but depends on your region.

Or.... you gotta hand-ball everythging. In the past I beleive we were told drivers were allowed 15 minutes per drop so you could enlist friends and family to help.

Or... simply purchase from a company that delivers by an appropriate transport company.

Just a few thoughts. Cheers - Pete

Some delivery people, have their own lift stowed on the back of the vehicle. This prevents a customer from getting in the way of the unload. As long as there is a flat spot, they can drop off the goods and drive off.

Have you asked the seller how he is going to load the trailer, and whether he can bring that gubbins along?

I believe he has a fork lift / material handler his end but can't bring along with the tiles perhaps because of weight.

Oh well, it was a thought!

I do hope that these tiles are a simply stupendous bargain, because it looks like unloading them is going to cost a fortune.

Unless it is a one man business, the fork lift truck will have other duties at the yard.

He brings the fork-lift on an empty trailer. Drops it off. Goes back for the tiles. Brings them and unloads them. Puts the fork-lift on the trailer and goes home. Simple.

If he's in the business of selling tiles on pallets, he really ought to be properly geared up to deliver them!

Having loaded them using what?

This is getting like the fox and hen crossing a river in a canoe ...

Ah! Good point! :-)

Have you looked into the cost of local labourers? If you can get a firm delivery time - and the seller's prepared to wait while they unload (for an extra fee perhaps) - you can get them put where you want them.

Reminds me of the time we ordered a pallet of peat bricks for our wood-burning stove and the lorry driver had been provided with a manual (ie not electric) fork-lift trolley because our road is on a slight incline and the cab end was a bit lower than the tail-lift end. He could not shift the pallet from one end of the lorry to the other, so he had to unload lots of blocks of bricks (they were banded together into blocks of 20) into my electric barrow, which we took up and down on the van's tail-lift. Eventually we got the pallet light enough that he could move it to the tail lift and then leave it on the pavement for me to carry on off-loading onto my barrow. I felt very sorry for him: it was not his fault that his company hadn't provided him with the proper tools to do the job. When we ordered another pallet the following year, the lorry had been equipped with a proper electric fork-lift trolley.

We had a similar (but smaller) situation, but for a different reason.

I ordered about £650 worth of heavy duty vinyl floor tiles (used in commercial garage bays) for my workshop. Probably overkill, but...

Ordered them Thursday for delivery Friday. Never turned up and it was too late to phone. They weren't open weekends. An extra day didn't really matter as I'd been delaying this for several months!

Phoned them Monday just after 0900. They were very, very apologetic; there had been a mix-up in the warehouse with two similar orders. They grovelled and said they had arranged for them to be sent by the fastest possible means (Wiltshire to Kent, I think).

This turned out to be a specially hired white van man. He arrived not long after midday.

The pallet had obviously already been loaded, and they just put it in the back of the van. It was being delivered to my house.

We (son, me and white van man) ended up unloading the tiles by hand. These tiles are 50cm square and weigh 2.4kg EACH. I bought a hundred. So about a quarter of a ton in total.

I cannot fault the company or their products. Bought a load of shelving too.

BigDUG, by the way.