Heavy, dry, and early
Why a flooring pallet weighs more than it looks and why it should land two days before install
Flooring lies to you about its weight. A single box of LVP or tile looks like something you carry under one arm, and it mostly is, so people multiply wrong and figure the order rides home in an SUV. It does not. Flooring ships palletized for a reason: the boxes are dense and the count is high, and a full pallet is a freight-scale load, not a cargo-area load. That is why the store has a forklift and you do not. We handle palletized loads. We haul wrapped AquaGuard laminate pallets and pallets of Sika 5-gallon buckets, blanketed over the top and strapped down. We are also straight about the ceiling. It is a cargo van and a 13 foot enclosed trailer with a drop-down ramp, and there is no liftgate. Matthew works solo and tops out around a refrigerator, roughly 300 pounds. Past that he brings a helper. A big pallet is a real weight, so it gets quoted upfront and may mean the helper rides along. That is a conversation before you book, never a surprise at the curb.
The other two things that ruin a flooring order are water and time. Water is simple. A Clearwater downpour on an open truck kills a laminate order, because the core swells and never comes back and every seam peaks up later. The van is enclosed and the trailer is enclosed, so that is off the table. Time is the one people skip. Wood, laminate, and LVP all move with the temperature and humidity of the room they are going into, and manufacturers want the boxes sitting in that room before anybody lays a plank. Install it straight off the truck in a Florida July and it expands into itself and buckles on you months later. That is why getting it delivered a day or two ahead of your installer actually matters, and why a store that can only deliver the morning of the job is not doing you a favor. We run same-day and scheduled, 7 days a week, so the pallet lands when your install needs it to land, not when a delivery route says so.
- Flooring ships palletized because the boxes are dense and the count is high. It is a freight load, not a trunk load
- We haul wrapped laminate pallets and pallets of 5-gallon buckets, blanketed and strapped
- Enclosed van and enclosed trailer, so a Florida downpour never reaches a laminate core
- Delivered a day or two ahead so the boxes acclimate in the room before install starts
- Matthew works solo to about 300 lbs. Past that a helper comes along