In line with our continued commitment to investing in the modular construction industry, Stream Modular is excited to announce a new collaboration with Heath Sartini, CEO of Viking Carrier, who will be building us 24 brand-new, custom-designed hydraulic carriers this year.
Through our conversations with stakeholders in the industry, we’ve discovered that many of you don’t have access to enough specialized trailers to haul your modules. We also know that many of you don’t want to spend precious capital or credit buying custom frames and trailers. For those who do, you know just how hard they are to come by and what an expensive investment they are to purchase and maintain. Now, with our investment and more to come, our company is looking to make it easier and more affordable than ever to source this necessary equipment.
Also known as ‘floats,’ and ‘hydraulic trailers,’ these specialized carriers have the ability to move their deck up and down to load modules onto cribbing and offload modules off of cribbing. These hydraulic carriers are critical for the safe loading and unloading of certain modules, particularly wood-framed modular structures.
With steel modules, their rigidity offers more crane lifting options onto just about any kind of carrier (like flatbeds, step-decks, lowboys, and RGNs). Wood modules, however, are more vulnerable to torsional forces when lifted by a crane, and that’s a primary reason why most wood-framed modular factories prefer to use self-loading and unloading hydraulic carriers.
In addition to a more gentle loading and unloading process, hydraulic carriers also allow modules to be handled without any expensive crane rentals, particularly at a staging yard. Most staging yards do not have handling equipment and are not manned, which means these are extra costs you’d have to incur. But, hydraulic carriers allow the modules to be unloaded and reloaded by the truck driver without a crane.
If we’re talking about using hydraulic carriers with modular homes, it typically works like this: When you send your modules to a staging yard from the factory, they’ll be taken on and off the hydraulic carrier chassis using the hydraulic lifting pistons and gently set onto cribbing. Once on the cribbing, the driver can back the trailer under the module, lift it up using the hydraulic deck, then someone can remove the cribbing, and the module can go on its way.
This hydraulic system on the trailer is key to moving the modules steadily, safely and quickly — helping reinforce the advantages of modular construction and keeping all your hard work intact.
Because hydraulic carriers aren’t commonly used (or needed) in other types of transportation, there are fewer carriers and drivers available for hire. This makes it incredibly difficult for rapidly growing factories to access these trailers, often resulting in delayed projects.
Another reason is these carriers are expensive to buy and maintain. So, it’s hard to find drivers and transportation companies that invest in them — unless they absolutely know there is a market nearby that will use these carriers consistently.
Companies that will increasingly need these hydraulic carriers might consider investing in a fleet themselves, too. But, the cost to invest and maintain them, as well as hire drivers, plan all routes, and everything else a logistics partner might take on, becomes a heavy burden for any company.
We have spoken with dozens of factories that prefer hydraulic carriers because of their self-loading and unloading capabilities, which allow the safe transfer of their components. In these conversations, we’ve also learned that many of these factories have been forced to buy their own hydraulic carriers since they could not find transport providers who are willing to make the investment.
“We want to see this industry grow, and it’s going to get stunted if factories have to make these hefty investments upfront. Factories have more productive uses for that capital,” explains Carson Holmquist, co-founder of Stream Modular. “So beyond our own initial investment of 24 hydraulic carriers, we’re also extending an offer to factories who have been pigeonholed. If you would rather divest those assets to free up credit or cash, we will buy them from you and guarantee you first-right access to those carriers for your projects. That way, you will have the benefit of use of the carriers, without the financial burden.”
What’s more, our team is going beyond buying up this essential equipment and investing in the trained, specialized workforce needed to keep it running smoothly.
“We know that we have to pair those carriers with skilled drivers,” Holmquist says. “So, we are also creating a modular hauler training program for drivers. We are going to help our trusted driver network learn the nuances of using hydraulic carriers to load and unload modules so that they are competent, confident, and efficient.”
If you would like to secure your use of these trailers for your upcoming project, reach out to our team, or simply book an initial project scoping call on our website.
Stream Modular is a transportation logistics company specializing exclusively in modular construction. We help modular manufacturers and builders transport mods, pods and panels so they arrive on time and safely to the build site.
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