Flatbed hauling loader while towing 16’ dump trailer

[Dead Cottonwood]

Hey treehouse, this is my first post here and I gotta say it’s great being able to communicate with all you. I’ve been doing tree work for 13 years, am a certified arborist, and have had my own business for five years.
Been doing the dump trailer operation and also have a tractor w/grapple attachment on the loader that weighs 3300#. Was thinking of getting a flatbed (3500-5500) to haul the tractor on while towing a 16’ deckover. I like this idea as it is a one truck, under cdl in my state, self contained setup that can haul brush and big wood that the tractor can load. What are your thoughts on this setup? Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[Merle Nelson]

Welcome to The Tree House.

My recommendation would be to go with a class 5 truck rather than anything smaller. I push towards overloading my 5500 Ram much of the time, anything smaller would be a waste.

I have an Avant 528 at about your machines weight.

I put a hook lift on my truck and had a couple of bins built to haul logs. So they are beefy and incredible. Also....not as much payload capability.

If I had the bed to do over again I might skimp on weight and material a bit so they were lighter.

 

[Tree09]

Welcome to the treehouse!!!!

 

[SkwerI]

DOT officers around here love picking on the guys with a one ton and loaded dump trailers. Get them on the road to the dump, like shooting fish in a barrel. The sooner you get a CDL the sooner you can quit playing the games. And you can probably buy a nice used Class 5-6 truck for the same money as a decent one ton, but with 3x the capacity. Bigger brakes and stability are huge factors when hauling loads.

 

[lumberjack]

Welcome to the House!


A 550 with a GVW of 19.5k can’t have much of a trailer and stay under CDL.


My recommendation is to get your CDL and stop limiting yourself. Life is easier with bigger equipment and getting a CDL isn’t very difficult. I made the jump to CDL work truck(s) almost 5 years ago after moving up from F550s.

 

[Tree09]

Staying under cdl even with a 1 ton is pretty hard. To be under cdl, the gcvw has to be 26k or less. My 1 ton has a 14k gvw, so the biggest trailer i can haul is a 12k one. So i use a little 12k trailer for now. This allows around 12k load per trip, by loading the truck and trailer. By comparison, if i got my cdl and ran my tandem with a loader, i could haul around 26k a trip before even adding a trailer behind it. It's more for plates and insurance, and in my case needs some work, but going that route would likely quadruple my material handling and hauling abilities overnight. I also only do part time for now, so there's that as well.

Big trucks often go cheap at auction, just because of the cdl requirements. 3500 for this old girl... in hindsight if i would have started using it immediately when i started my business, i would be wayyyyyyyyyy farther ahead than i am now. Winter project this year I'm thinking.

 

[pantheraba]

Awesome truck!

 

[Jonny]

Hell yea, very cool truck, looks damn useful for hauling sawlogs if you ever get into that.

 

[Tree09]

My buddy has a grapple for it too, so imagine that on there. Was thinking about moving it to a rear mount, but need to look into if that's ok and what it would require. 22.5 ton-meter hiab.