Let the photos pick the truck.

Do not name a truck to sound informed

A tidy video of a tilt-tray or a side-loader is not your gate. Describe the gate. Let the method be chosen after the photos and the unit are known. The delivery page lists the methods in plain words. Read your own site, then ask which method those photos allow.

A straight run fails at a tree, a clothesline, a slope that drops away, or ground that looks flat and is actually a septic field. Say the thing you are tempted to leave out. An early conversation about the septic is kinder than meeting it on the day.

Side room fails when the gap is wide enough for the container and not wide enough for the machine that lifts it. Include the fence, the car, and the soft shoulder in the photo. A gap you can walk is not a gap a loader can stand in.

Overhead wires, awnings and limbs cancel methods that would otherwise work. Photograph them from a safe distance. Do not lift anything toward a line. Say “wires at the entrance” and stop. Clearance is a specialist check, not a household chore.

Questions worth asking of your own photos

Can the truck leave forwards, or must it reverse the way it came? A successful arrival with no exit is not a plan. Photograph the exit as carefully as the entrance. Measuring includes that exit mark.

Who owns the ground the truck must stand on? A neighbour’s verge, a body corporate lane, a school drive and a farm grid are different permissions. The method you like is irrelevant if the permission is missing. Put the permission in the message.

What did the ground do last time it rained? Methods that need bearing strength care about that more than about the suburb. Preparing the ground is how you improve a pad. It is not how you disguise a bog for one morning.

Which unit are we moving? A 20ft body and a 40ft body do not ask the same run of ground. A high cube asks more of the overhead. If you have not chosen, leave size open and let the photos narrow it. The quote should name the method with the unit, not as a vague “delivery”.

A side gap that was only a walk

A buyer with a workshop wants the shipping container set beside the building, in a gap that looks generous in a photo taken straight down the fence. A second photo, from the end, shows the neighbour’s shed footing and a soft garden bed inside the gap. The walkable width is real. The liftable width is not. They send both photos and they stop arguing for a side lift.

The alternative is a straight run up the drive, which is clear, with a slight fall. They say the fall. They say the drive is concrete and the pad is roadbase that has been there for years, not fresh loose stone. That distinction is the difference between a method and a hope. They do not use the words tilt-tray in the first sentence. They use the words concrete, fall, and roadbase.

Overhead is a single limb, well clear of any wires, that they can trim before the day. Power lines are photographed from a safe distance; never approach or measure them, and never trim near them. If a power line is near the entrance, they mention it so the carrier and the network operator can check clearance.

The quote they want names a method that matches the drive, or it says the drive is not enough and offers the next question. A quote that says “side-loader” because the first photo looked wide will be sent back with the second photo attached. Truck choice is a conversation with the worse photo, not the better one.

On the day the limb is gone, the garden bed is not asked to be a road, and the person who took the photos is present. If rain has made the roadbase doubtful they ring 1300 789 543. Methods are conditional. The condition was in the photos if you took the right ones.

Label the photos before you argue for a method

Caption each photo with what it is trying to prove: straight run, side gap, overhead, exit. A shipping container method chosen from an unlabeled gallery is a guess. If the side gap photo hides a garden bed, take another from the end that shows the bed. Send the one that hurts the method you prefer, so the quote is written against the true clearance. You are trying to see the failure before the truck is in the street.

Say what the surface is in the stopping place: concrete, old roadbase, fresh gravel, lawn, clay. Fresh gravel is not bearing just because it is new. Lawn is not a method. If a septic or a soak is under the pretty grass, say so even if you are not certain. Uncertainty is a reason to move the stop mark, not a reason to stay quiet.

Leave the method unnamed if you are unsure, and ask the quote to name it. If you are sure, still ask to see it in writing next to the unit length. A 40ft body can invalidate a run that a 20ft body would have survived. The photos and the length are one decision. Do not let them travel in separate emails that nobody joins up.

Truck questions

Send the worse photo

The photo that makes a method look unlikely is the one to send. Truck choice for a shipping container goes better when the awkward edge is visible before the day.

Measure first if you have not: measuring the site. Door end still matters once the truck can get there: door direction.