The cold winter months are quickly approaching, which means higher utility bills and lower air quality for your warehouse are just around the corner. Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. Hodge keeps employee safety and productivity top of mind, so you don’t have to worry about potential issues that cause your bottom-line profits to seep out your warehouse doors during the winter months. We have several solutions that can help minimize the impact of carbon emissions and keep the warm air inside your warehouse.
Below are 5 tips tips for preparing your warehouse for winter.
Soon it’s going to be too cold to have your warehouse doors open all day, so before you have to shut your warehouse doors for the winter have your internal combustion engines and equipment serviced. Conducting an emission test can help you determine the emission output of your lift trucks so you can adjust them to minimize carbon monoxide (CO2) output.
Hodge offers two ways you can test CO2 levels on your equipment:
1. We can stop out to your warehouse and test the CO2 emission of your equipment in less than an hour with our emission testing tool.
2. You can order a carbon monoxide detector card that gets placed in your warehouse and monitors the CO2 levels for an entire year. Both are great options for keeping employees safe and production levels high.
Before the bitter cold temperatures arrive, you should inspect dock doors and levelers for proper sealing. If there are any gaps around the top, bottom or sides of your doors, or if you can see daylight, you’re losing energy which also means you’re losing money.
Installing weather stripping on the perimeter of your doors will prevent any drafts and heat loss. These same seals also keep bugs and other debris out of the building the rest of the year.
Restraining a vehicle at your loading dock keeps trailers snug against the dock, which prevents energy gaps and saves you money. It’s also a great safety measure for you and your team.
At Hodge, we sell a variety of restraints and are sure to have one that fits your needs. Our sales team would be happy to stop out and let you know which option would be best for you.
If your lift trucks need to go outdoors for any reason, a pneumatic tire would be the perfect fit for you and your fleet. Pneumatic tires have treads that make them ideal for handling winter weather and they are long lasting.
Even though you own dependable equipment, it requires basic and routine attention to ensure it provides the day-to-day performance required to run your operation. Investing in a preventative maintenance plan, whether it’s for your lift truck or dock, can have a huge impact on the long-term value and life expectancy of your equipment.
Keep your equipment running properly during every season and avoid costly downtime by planning maintenance ahead of time.
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