I'm wondering if any of you guys have experience with receiving truck load shipments of wood flooring?

I'm working on finding a new building for my company to both have more room and to be able to accept truck load and LTL shipments of hardwood (probably mostly LTL at first), as we plan to try to sell more flooring and to save money by buying direct from the mill.

I've found 2 great buildings I'm considering and both have loading docks. But neither has a ground level garage door. Now I know if shipments came on a normal semi with an enclosed trailer that I'd usually be able to drive a forklift into the truck, but what I'm concerned about is being able to offload flat bed trucks.. If I had the forklift Im planning to buy in the warehouse, I couldn't get it out due to the dock being off the ground.. So I could leave it outside near the dock to be able to unload these trucks.. But then I wouldn't be able to stack the flooring which would make it take up a lot of space.

I'd really prefer to not have to buy 2 forklifts, at least right away.. So I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with this sort of thing? Should I hold off for a building with a ground level garage door (these are hard to find, I've been looking), or can I make it work? Can I request a enclosed semi so I can accept all orders with 1 forklift or would my only option be leaving the forklift outside, lifting flooring up to dock and then moving product with a pallet jack?

Any help would be appreciated.. I know this isn't a trucking forum, but thought some of you guys do this.. Thanks!

We use the same lift for flat beds and van trailers. You will get a better shipping rate with a van.

Hi Rhodes,

Glad to hear things are going well for you guys. We were in the same situation for many years with only a loading dock access for LTL and containers. It made things easy for unloading the freight but everything needed to be hand loaded into smaller vehicles.

Right now we have a ground access which certainly makes things easier, but most flooring pallets come long and therefore you will want to get fork extensions along with your forklift to load directly. If you end up getting a place without a dock, you could always build a ramp outside for receiving LTL and get an outside capable forklift with bigger tires for the winter seasons coming up.

All the best,
Andrew