There I was, booking loads for the next day as always, placing calls to the brokers I deal with on a regular basis. A question came up when talking to one, “Do you think it would be possible to move a warehouse with your two trucks in a half a day, 30 miles away?” He had also mentioned to me the need for daycabs only, which helped add to the price based on my own internal difficulty meter! After of course reviewing the robust inventory for this little warehouse and explaining to him that my driver could back his sleeper into any hole he had for the trailer, I let him know that we were most definitely up for the challenge!
I had volunteered to be there bright and early for the first pickup, allowing me to scope out the area and communicate any problems directly, should any come up. My first impression of the site was not a favorable one, as it was in a light commercial office area of town and there was not a real truck-sized dock anywhere in sight! Getting there well before the warehouse owner, I was able to take my time in scoping out the area to find a favorable place to stage the truck, as close as I could to the rollup door I suspected would be where we were loading out of.
Once again, not having a dock worked out to my advantage, as the shipper was armed and ready with a rental forklift and a couple of hand pallet jacks. He brought in temps to help with the labor and already had a lot of the inventory palletized and shrink-wrapped, making the loading and unloading process take somewhere around 45 minutes on either end. In the end we literally took everything in the place, only leaving bare walls in the warehouse they were moving from. We accomplished this by packing things like computers, desks, chairs, and shelves around all of the nicely wrapped pallets. After all was said and done, my driver and I were able to move this entire place in a record setting 5 hours from start to finish, running on each other’s heels for a total of three well synchronized loads.
Although you often think of trucking as the moving of goods from seller to purchaser, you would be surprised just how frequently these warehouse moves actually take place. In my operation, I see at least one of these types of moves every month and take them whenever I can due to them having good rates to get the work done with precision and speed. Many different things can trigger warehouse moves like this. Just like this one we did, they can be due to needing more space or a better location. During tougher economic times you can find just the opposite as a reason, but nonetheless, these types of moves will still be found. Some claim to move mountains…but I am perfectly happy getting paid to move warehouses, big or small!