I can’t say I like curtain work, but am getting some regular stints now and feel a bit underqualified for it. I try and follow the instructions of people who should know, and use common sense. I have looked on this site too.
For starters, does a load bearing curtain cover you for an unstrapped heavy load (beer barrels) if it is a tight fit with just a kite at the back?
When you strap to the trailer chassis, do you try and avoid hooking in the same manner as the curtain strap? I hear the lip can get bent, but what other options are there if there are no load bearing hooks?
When I come out of the shed at Palletline/Palletways I don’t see many people strapping!
Fact is, nobody really does what the book says you should when it comes to load restaint on curtains. Rightly or wrongly, guys tend to just judge for themselves whether they think the loads going anywhere once the curtains are shut. The arguments about what some guys think are acceptable and others don’t have been done to death on here.
Beer kegs should really have an internal restraint curtain on them, even with an XL trailer. Without an internal curtain a DVSA officer could well argue that you need empty pallets on top then the whole lot ratcheted down to the bed. I have however carried them with the plastic dividers on top & the internals criss crossed.
cheersdrive:
When you strap to the trailer chassis
You don’t. The lips on the side rails shouldn’t get bent by a ratchet strap. We strap to the rail and we’re securing a stack of two packs of chipboard weighing 9 tonnes in total (4.5 tonnes per pack), the roads it gets to go down are far from the straightest and chipboard is a notorious load for movement. Some of the scots drivers picking up the chipboard use metal bars on the ratchets to tighten them so tight you can play a tune on the straps and when you release the ratchet it goes with a hell of a bang. Not seen a bent rail yet, even on the trailers we have which are knocking on 20 years old.
