How much room does the delivery truck need?

The question you are really asking: will the truck even get there

Most people picture the delivery problem backward. They measure the spot where the container will sit and figure that is what the driver needs. It is not. The number that decides whether we can deliver to your property is the length of open, straight ground in front of that spot, because of how the container actually comes off the truck.

Why a tilt-bed needs a runway, not a parking space

Almost every delivery goes out on a tilt-bed trailer. The driver backs the trailer in and stops it a little short of where the container will finish. The front of the bed lifts, the far end of the container sets down on the ground, and the driver rolls ahead a few feet at a time until the box has walked itself off the trailer. The container is not lifted and set down. It travels backward across your ground as the truck creeps forward out from under it.

That is the whole reason the clearance numbers exist. Plan on roughly sixty five feet of straight room ahead of a twenty foot container and about ninety five feet for a forty foot one, measured from where the trailer stops to well past the final resting spot.

Width and turning room matter too, just less than length

• Ten to twelve feet of width, minimum, the whole way in, so nothing is scraping the edges
• A little working space on each side of the container once it is down
• Somewhere for the truck to back and line up before it starts the drop
• Clear sky along the whole route, since the front of the container rises well into the air as it slides off

If your driveway is tight, curved or uphill, do not guess

A narrow gate, a sharp turn, or a steep grade change can turn sixty five feet of straight length into something the truck cannot use, even if the total distance looks fine on paper. Take one picture from the road looking in at your approach and one standing on the drop spot looking back out, and send both when you call. Two photos settle in advance what a driver would otherwise have to work out with a loaded trailer sitting in your driveway.