Reduce Costs with Mobile Yard Ramps

Starting a new company can be a very expensive experience. Not only do you have to pay for your new location to do business in, but you have to buy all the equipment that you will need, and you will have to have the building altered for appearances. For a company that deals in truck shipments, one of the most expensive investments is a permanent loading dock.

If you have ever been out behind a large warehouse, you have probably seen one of these loading docks. Basically, a loading dock is a large bay that is set into the side of a building. When a truck needs to drop something off, or pick something up they will back up to the bay. The bay door will be opened to accommodate the truck and all of the items will move between the back of the truck and the warehouse.

Lowering Your Costs

Although a loading bay is an excellent solution for very busy businesses, it is also a pretty expensive solution. If the business can spare tens of thousands of dollars to have a bay put into the building it could be the best solution, but a much more affordable solution can be found with portable yard ramps.

Portable yard ramps are very large steel or aluminum ramps set on a set of durable tires. These ramps are typically between 30 and 40 feet long in total, and thy can be anywhere from 6 feet to 18 feet wide.

One side of the ramp has a set of jacks that are used to raise or lower the ramp down into position. Not every truck is going to be the same height, and that means that the ramp will have to move up or down, to get it into the right position for all of those different trucks that are going to be using it.

Mobile yard ramps are much more affordable than having a loading dock installed in the building, and there are a few advantages other than cost to factor in as well. For one thing the ramps can also be leased or rented if you are not interested in purchasing one outright. The main advantage with this is that when the ramp is worn out you get a free replacement to use instead of having to purchase another one. Another advantage to portable yard ramps is that they can be replaced very easily when they become worn out.

A worn out ramp is simply rolled away, and a new one is rolled into its place. A loading bay is much more intensive to replace because it is a permanent structure at the company. Instead of rolling the structure away, it is necessary to pay a demolition crew to come in with heavy machinery and destroy all of the concrete that the bay is made out of. From there a construction company has to come in an install all of the new concrete and machinery on top of the location to provide a new loading bay. Mobile yard ramps will prove to be a much more economical solution all around for most light, to medium traffic businesses.