Leaving chips in the back of the truck, Good or Bad????

[Ax-man]

Chips can ignite if their in a pile.. We were working for a small town that was providing us with a dump spot for the chips and wood. The chips caught fire after about a three days of being of being in an open field, the conditions that led to the fire were the chips being exposed to a steady hot dry wind from the southwest, three days of steady wind, with the third day being the windiest. Took their fire department hours to put that smoldering mess out.

The following spring our local mulch dealer had the same thing happen to them, exact same conditions. Only this time it was a much bigger pile and took the surrounding fire departments to put it out.

I've never heard of chips catching fire in the back of a truck though.

 

[kf_tree]

similar to tom d's story........a chipper truck with a home made box was parked on the street for a few days. the chips started to smoke a bit, so the firemen were called and cut the roof off of the truck and hosed it all down.

 

[moose]

I don't think they will catch fire but if you leave the truck full of chips all the time it must be hard on the trucks suspension.

 

[Lumberjack]

That is true. Over time the springs will sag.

My grandfather worked in the coal mines of North Carolina/ Virginia. He would use 2 peices of wood cut to the proper length. He put a notch in the end of them to catch the rear bumper. When he backed up, the boards would take most of the weight, but leave enough weight on the tires to ley the parking break work.

 

[Menchhofer]

Agree, leaving chips in the truck is hard on the suspension.

Most truck boxes are covered inside with undercoating material or such to prevent corrosion from the chips.