A farrier has an essential and specific job, and the horse and the rider depend on them greatly. That’s why having the right tools for the job is vital for business. Here are some important on-site tools every farrier needs both at the home stables and out doing calls.

The Hoof Cleaning Tools

There are many hoof-cleaning tools that a farrier needs to do their job. A more comprehensive list includes a hoof tester, rasp, farrier’s knife, hoof stand, hoof nippers, horseshoe pullers, nailing hammer, nail clincher, and a clinching block. All these items are necessary for hoof cleaning, and a farrier will use most—if not all—of them while on a call.

A Portable Anvil

A great move in the farrier business is to take your operations to your clients. You’ll need a portable setup for all your tools and equipment to do this. Investing in a portable anvil is a great idea because it’s vital for horseshoe production and maintenance. You’ll need a durable space for metalworking, and an anvil provides just that.

A Portable Forge

Similar to the portable anvil, a forge is a necessary part of a farrier’s toolkit. However, bringing both a forge and an anvil around can quickly fill up your vehicle space, and accessing them is even more difficult. Even with a larger vehicle, investing in a vehicle trunk organizer can greatly help carry all the tools you need for your job.

A Hoof Gauge

Another important on-site tool every farrier needs is the hoof gauge. This tool measures the angles and curves of a horseshoe. This tool can be very useful for accurately shoeing horses and checking your work. It’s great for inspecting the balance between the left and right hooves of the horse before you finish the job.

A farrier needs a lot of equipment no matter the job. Even if they don’t use every tool for the job, they’ll eventually need it for a job soon. That’s why farriers need to have these on hand at every appointment.

Pickup trucks are some of the best vehicles for moving heavy loads and driving off road. A lot of businesses use them as service vehicles due to these strengths. However, not every pickup is the same, and some are much tougher than others. So, here’s a list of the toughest pickup trucks on the market in 2022.

Ford F-150

The Ford F-150 starts at $28,000 and goes up in price depending on your exact specifications. There are several different models you can choose in this line, but they all offer amazing performance. Each one offers 4×4 control and a large towing capacity that can manage up to 11,000 pounds, depending on your choices of options. This is a great vehicle for a work fleet or personal use.

Silverado ZR2

With better tires, suspension, and design, the Silverado ZR2 is an upgrade for many vehicles and is the premium pickup truck of Chevrolet. With 420 hp and a tow capacity of 8,900 lbs, the Silverado is great for many different jobs and trips. It has plenty of capacity for any assortment of equipment you need.

Toyota Tundra

Another vehicle that offers a variety of options depending on your needs, the Toyota Tundra is a powerful vehicle. Starting at $35,000, this pickup can tow 8,000-12,000 pounds. There are different options for more powerful versions of the pickup, letting you design the vehicle you need for yourself while still benefitting from its amazing performance.

Honda Ridgeline

Although this vehicle offers less towing power (5,000 lbs) than some other pickup options, it’s not a vehicle you can ignore. Being one of the better mid-size trucks on the market, the Ridgeline offers a strong 280 hp V6 Engine that’s great for all-terrain travel and for all driving styles. Plus, a bed size of 63” is nothing to scoff at when looking at mid-size trucks.

GMC Hummer EV

The GMC Hummer EV is one of the heaviest vehicles you’ll find in the market that still offers the same benefits of a pickup trick. This effective super truck doesn’t carry or tow as much as other options, but it offers amazing power and great steering for any driver. Additionally, the vehicle runs on electricity, making it great for the environment.

Hyundai Santa Cruz

Sometimes you want a vehicle that can handle the adventures you go on more than you want it to tow things. The Santa Cruz is that vehicle, as it specializes as a sport and adventure vehicle. With a higher MPG than other trucks and the comfort of an SUV with the utility of an open bed for carrying things, this vehicle is one of the best you can get for personal use and off-roading adventures.

Rivian R1T

An amazing electric truck that offers a spectacular towing capacity of 11,000 lbs and over 600 hp. This vehicle can get you where you need with whatever you need to bring. Plus, it also features a similar SUV style of comfort the Santa Cruz offers in its vehicle, making this vehicle perfect for trips with heavy equipment while traveling in comfort.

Ford Maverick

As one of the smaller vehicles on this list, the Ford Maverick is still one of the toughest pickup trucks on the market in 2022. With a 54” bed length, this vehicle can still carry a lot of weight, though a truck bed sliding tray aftermarket modification can make the bed a lot more useful. However, this vehicle can only handle towing up to 2,000 lbs, so keep that in mind when looking for vehicles that can support your needs.

GMC Sierra Denali Ultimate

The Serra Denali Ultimate is a huge upgrade over their last vehicles, making it worth your time when considering a new vehicle. With a tow capacity of almost 9,000 lbs, this vehicle can handle most jobs and trips you’re planning. The numerous additional technological marvels inside the vehicle, like automatic lane changes, can make driving that much more effortless.

RAM 2500

A true powerhouse for tow weight and carrying weigh, the RAM 2500 is one of the best vehicles for moving equipment. With a payload limit of 1,500-4,000 lbs and a towing capacity of 10,000-15,000 lbs depending on your exact vehicle, you can be sure that you’ll successfully transport almost anything you need in this truck.

Jeep Gladiator

The jeep gladiator is one of the best in its class, with a great many features and options for your vehicle. Additionally, the vehicle has a great towing capacity of over 4,000 lbs and can carry a weight of around 1,700 lbs. This truck also features a decent MPG rate, making it a great investment for longer travels and trips while still being able to haul all kinds of heavy equipment.

Ford F-250 Super Duty

The F-250 Super Duty lives up to its name, with some of highest tow capacity and carry weight out of any pickup trucks. With a towing capacity of 12,300-15,000 lbs and payload of roughly 2,400-4,300 lbs, this truck is a monster at carrying whatever heavy equipment you desire. However, the vehicle weighs a lot when compared to other pickups, which can have some big implications on convenience. Another great benefit of choosing this vehicle is the cheaper starting price tag of $37,000, making it a great fleet vehicle for a business or company.

Nissan Titan XD

The Nissan Titan XD is another heavy-duty pickup truck with great towing power and payload capacity. With a towing capability of 9,700-10,900 lbs and a capacity of 1,800-2,400 lbs for a starting price of $45,800, you know you’re getting a good deal. Additionally, the Titan is full of features, like a touch screen that assists with driving and which increases the value of the vehicle further.

Toyota Tacoma

A great mid-size truck that can handle anywhere from 3500-6800 lbs when towing depending on the exact vehicle you choose. This truck is great for off-roading and adventuring while still being extremely durable and highly customizable.

These are the most popular and powerful pickup trucks on the market in 2022, and every single one fits all the certain needs and criteria of a powerful pickup truck. You can easily find the option that best fits your need among the vehicles in this list. Don’t forget that you can always use aftermarket modifications to adjust a lot of the features of a truck, so you can buy something close to what you want and fine-tune it to your standards.

Finding the load capacity of your truck isn’t as easy as many people think. Most people just use the number on the owner’s manual, but that number is misleading and doesn’t account for any modifications you get. Before you start loading up your truck, make sure you learn how to find the load capacity of your truck.

Your GVWR

The first thing you need for this calculation is your Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). This number is the pounds your vehicle can carry in total, not including towing. You can typically find this number in your owner’s manual or on a plate on the sidewall of your vehicle. However, this number doesn’t account for the curb weight of the vehicle.

Your Curb Weight

The curb weight of a vehicle is the weight of the vehicle when there’s nothing else in it except what it needs when running, like a full tank of gas. The GVWR doesn’t exclude this number when reporting, which can cause many problems if you don’t then calculate the new payload capacity without it.

Finding the Payload Capacity

The calculation to find the load capacity of your truck is your vehicle’s GVWR minus its curb weight. This should give you the leftover capacity of your vehicle. Be careful, though, as modifications you add on also take up load capacity and should be factored into your calculations. Though they can add extra weight, modifications like a vehicle aluminum storage trunk are worth it, as they help you reach your weight limit when loading items and gear.

Your Tow Weight or GCVWR

The tow weight of a vehicle is separate from the payload capacity, as towing a load puts pressure on different parts of your vehicle. Like the GVWR, you can find this number on the plate on the sidewall of your vehicle. It’s also typically in the owner’s manual as well if you can’t find the plate.

All of this is very important information that every truck owner should know about their vehicle. Otherwise, they risk doing permanent damage to the vehicles from overloading. For a business, this can cost a lot of money, as it also increases worker-health risks. So make sure no one loads more than the actual payload capacity of a vehicle by using this method to determine it.

No matter which line of work you’re in, everyone knows that a pickup truck is one of the best vehicles for tough jobs. They have plenty of space to store tools, adequate towing capabilities, and the ability to transport large items.

Every truck driver wants their vehicle to be clean, but that’s not always easy. With the day-to-day stresses of work eating up all our attention, cleanliness and organization can sometimes fall by the wayside.

Luckily, there are many ways you can organize your truck, and in this guide, you will learn some of the best ones. With this in mind, here are the top methods for organizing the equipment in your truck.

Keeping Smaller Items in Truck Bed Cases

A popular storage item for many pickup truck drivers is a swing case, which is a case that comes in tough plastic and swings out 180 degrees for easy access. These cases are usually for storing smaller hand tools, so you won’t be able to put anything too big in them.

However, they serve their purpose quite well, and if there are smaller items that you don’t want to store in the passenger seat, this is the perfect case to hold these sorts of objects. The swinging feature allows you to access these items without entering your truck’s bed, which is incredibly convenient.

Nonetheless, the swing case isn’t the only kind of truck storage organizer that offers this advantage. Wheel well storage is another helpful case for your truck because it helps you utilize space in your bed that you might not have used before.

Wheel well cases allow you to store items right above your truck wheels without interfering with your toppers and covers. Between swing cases and wheel well storage, you should be able to handle smaller items with ease.

Organizing Larger Items With Slide-Out Bed Extenders

At some point during any truck owner’s life, they will think about what their vehicle could hold if the bed were a tiny bit longer. If you’ve ever had this thought, then look no further than slide-out bed extenders. These devices allow you to access your gear without entering the bed just like swing cases, except they can hold much larger gear or greater quantities of smaller items.

There are many different kinds of slide-out bed extenders, some of which can even serve as a worktable for you to use. Essentially, this piece of equipment can transform your truck from a transportation device into a dedicated mobile workstation. Also, if 100% extension isn’t enough, Extendobed has slide-out bed extenders that go past your taillights, so you can truly maximize your storage capabilities.

Carrying Groceries and Sporting Equipment With Cargo Nets and Bags

Cargo nets and bags help you secure your load so that things don’t slide around on your bed while you’re driving. These items are especially useful for groceries and sporting equipment, so you might want to invest in them if you have kids at home.

Nevertheless, you can also use cargo nets and bags for holding many other things, including work equipment. However, if you have nails, screws, or sharper objects, they might pierce the material and cause it to rip, so you will probably want to keep them in a swing case or slide-out bed extender.

Keep Your Boxes and Coolers at Bay With a Cargo Bar

A cargo bar is a relatively straightforward organizational tool, as it’s just a metal bar that you can use to separate items or secure them. This device is most practical for storing boxes, bins, and coolers because it’s just a bar, so you will need to organize your stuff with containers of some kind.

Additionally, if you are transporting large appliances like a refrigerator or freezer, a cargo bar will help you secure them to the bed so that they don’t bang around. When appliances like these aren’t secured, they could get damaged when they slide or even damage your vehicle due to their sheer size and weight.

Make Use of Under-Seat Storage in Your Cab

Your truck bed isn’t the only place where you can store items. The cab also offers you plenty of room to store gear, but naturally, there won’t be as much space as there is in the bed. Thankfully, a few companies offer under-seat storage for your cab so that you can keep things out of sight and out of mind while your eyes are on the road.

You can mount these bins to the underside of your seat or just leave them behind you if you don’t have any passengers. These bins are perfect for laptops, first aid kits, hand tools, and writing utensils. There are also hanging cab organizers, which let you hang them on the back of your seat.

They might take up more space in the back, but they’re also easier to reach than under-seat storage bins. The main thing you need to decide is whether you want your things to be within reach or out of view.

Reap the Benefits of Console Organizers

Any items that you use on a frequent basis should be in the center console of your truck. Snacks, drinks, smartphones, and chargers are all essential items to have on hand when you’re sitting up front.

Depending on how much you typically carry with you, the center console and the glove box might not be enough storage. Luckily, there are padded console organizers that you can adjust to keep numerous items secure. Snacks and drinks might not seem important, but if you are working hard at your job all day and experience a late-afternoon slump, you will wonder how you could possibly work without them.

Overall, truck beds afford you plenty of room to store stuff, but they don’t give you pointers on how you should go about organizing things. Thankfully, now that you know some of the top methods for organizing the equipment in your truck, you shouldn’t have a problem keeping track of your vital equipment.

Work trucks carry some of the heaviest loads and equipment for their jobs, which can cause problems when you need just a bit more room for something else, or you need to be able to access what you have stored in your truck bed, even with a truck shell or tonneau cover installed. However, you can usually make this room by properly organizing and modifying your vehicle. Here are five great work truck organization ideas for 2022 that you can try out for yourself.

Easy Access

First off, tackling your gear and equipment so it’s easy to access is key for both space utilization and work efficiency. Putting tools you frequently use by access spots, like doors, gives these items a place and speeds up loading and unloading. Other tricks, like putting heavy items on the bottom, can have similar effects while also improving worker safety.

Truck Bed Slide-Outs

The bed of a work truck is a huge benefit for any business, but it can be difficult to use all its potential. An easy solution is using a vehicle slide-out tray, like the custom ones from Extendobed. These truck bed slide-outs work great for efficiency storage and space utilization, increase the safety of workers, and Extendobed trays are the only ones that extend past the taillights – over 110% extension..

Modular Storage

There are many storage solutions out there on the market, but modular storage is one of the best for space efficiency. Additionally, using this with a truck bed slide-out can greatly increase your storage capabilities without adding extra space to your vehicle.

Tool Rack

One of the five great work truck organization ideas for 2022 is tool racks. This is such a useful part of storage improvement that it should get its own segment. A lot of space around the walls and ceiling of a work truck doesn’t see much use, but tool racks can help utilize that space well. By installing tool racks, you can store your odd tools that don’t fit well in a box, and by doing so, you’ll save room for storing other items.

Safety

Worker safety should be the highest priority of any workplace or business, as workers drive the whole company. All your upgrades should increase storage capabilities but also help reduce the risks workers take. From slide-out trays that make loading easier to tool racks that prevent loose tools, keeping your workers safe is easy and a good investment.

All these ideas are great for bettering your storage options and organization in your work vehicles. The best thing is that you can mix and match them, creating a system that works best for you and your vehicles. Plan ahead to create a system that massively improves your current storage possibilities and better protects your workers.

Many industrial businesses and services are turning to vans for their service vehicles because they have a lot of storage volume and can be locked up, protecting the contents. But the problem is many workers throw stuff on the floor of their vans, even in ones upfitted with storage shelves, making it slow and inefficient to find items. Unloading and reloading their vans every time they need something can really hamper work. That’s why so many industrial vans use upgrades to improve their productivity and usefulness. This is what you need to know about upgrading your industrial van and some ways you can do it.

Organization

First off, storage and equipment organization are major factors of productivity in an industrial van. Without the proper care, you lose efficiency in your space, and workers slow down dealing with the ineffective storage. Invest in proper storage modifications, like a shelving and drawer system, or a sliding trunk tray, that organizes the space you already have so you can utilize it better. Note that a slide out can almost double the storage volume over a traditional shelf/drawer system because it utilizes the dead space usually needed in shelf/drawer systems to get in the van and open drawers. Plus, a slide out storage option can help limit employee risks of injuries occurring from climbing in and out of the van multiple times per day..

Security

Another upgrade you should get for your van is a boost to their security features. Each vehicle is a big investment for a company, and each can carry a lot of expensive equipment. Protecting your investments is important, so you must install safety measures that secure your equipment and deter any would-be thieves.

Performance

Another part of what you need to know about upgrading your industrial van is about the van’s performance. Slow vans with poor handling can be inefficient for workers and a danger for everyone. That’s why you should look into tire upgrades for better handling and speed. You can couple this with other aftermarket modifications that help your van perform the ways that most benefits your business.

Communication

A lot can happen on each task you send your van on, which is why good communication is key for these vehicles. Creating and investing in communication systems that help workers stay in contact and current with any work news is important. These systems limit confusion and help workers avoid issues around the job.

Custom Changes

The last part of your industrial van upgrade that you should worry about is what your work needs. Every industry is different and will need solutions for different problems. Talk with your workers about these issues and work together for solutions that solve them. This may mean you need changes for vehicles that aren’t standard, but it’ll be worth it because they fulfill your needs. So, be careful and full plan out your upgrades for the best result.

Anyone who needs to haul large pieces of work equipment knows that a pickup truck is the best vehicle for the job. However, with this convenience also come some safety issues, specifically ones related to loading and unloading gear into the truck bed.

Luckily, there are a few tips that can help every truck driver. Here are some tips for loading your truck bed properly.

Keep All Items Secure

You should start by securing everything you’re carrying when loading your truck bed. For this purpose, you may want to invest in something to help you organize your equipment, such as a truck bed slide-out tray.

This tray makes loading gear much safer because you slide all your items out to you rather than having to climb in and out of your truck bed to place items in it. This significantly reduces your risk of twisting a knee or ankle when climbing out of your truck bed. If you have any other loose items that don’t fit in your slide-out tray, you can use packing materials to ensure that they don’t move around too much while you drive.

Distribute Weight Evenly

The next thing you should think about is your vehicle’s weight capacity. Every truck has a gross vehicle weight rating that lets you know what the limit is on how much freight it can handle. If you can’t find this rating, you should check the owner’s manual for your vehicle.

Once you find out what your gross vehicle weight rating is, be sure to distribute the weight of your cargo evenly between the front, back, left, and right of your truck bed. You’ll want to place the heaviest objects near the truck cab so that they don’t fall off the back of your truck while you’re on the road.

Don’t Lose Track of Your Gear

As you load equipment, it’s easy to lose track of things when everything is cluttered. However, by organizing your tools with intention, you can ensure that you’ll never lose track of your gear. Going through your truck bed to find a missing part can waste valuable time when you’re on the job, which is why effective organizing is a critical component of loading in your truck.

Overall, trucks won’t load themselves, so you need to use best practices when loading in your gear. After learning the best tips for loading your truck bed properly, you can look forward to being a more capable and productive truck driver.

Whether you live in an area that experiences extreme heat or harsh winter weather, you probably benefit from having a working HVAC system in your home. Nonetheless, when your system malfunctions, you need to call an HVAC repair technician.

If you are an HVAC technician, then you know that what you bring with you to each job will determine whether you can perform your job properly or not. With this in mind, here is what an HVAC technician should have in their trunk.

Hand Tools

The main things that HVAC technicians should carry in their trunks are standard hand tools. These items include hammers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, pliers, tin snips,a sawz-all and drills.

Since HVAC technicians often must go into some hard-to-reach places, they should also carry a flashlight with them since there probably won’t be adequate lighting in some areas. HVAC technicians use these tools for many different tasks, and they are a must-have item for any handyperson.

A Sliding Storage Trunk

Since HVAC technicians need to carry so many tools to each job, they should have a dedicated storage solution for their equipment. Most HVAC technicians drive either a cargo van or a pickup truck, which allows them to store a vast amount of gear. However, these items can slide around in the cargo area and get damaged since there is so much space. They can also be difficult to load and unload to get to needed tools or equipment that has been stacked in the vehicle.

For this reason, HVAC technicians should invest in vehicle aluminum storage trunks. These sliding devices allow you to access your equipment without entering your truck bed or cargo space. With a sliding storage trunk at your disposal, you can save time and focus on repairing HVAC equipment rather than digging through piles of gear until you find what you’re looking for.

HVAC Components

This should go without saying, but any HVAC technician should bring along basic components for any HVAC system to each job. Some examples of such items include air filters, clamps, refrigeration gauges, extra refrigeration fluid, and various pipe fittings.

Many HVAC technicians will have a reactive approach to their job rather than a proactive one. By bringing these components to each job, you can ensure that you will be able to finish a job without having to go get something, impress your customers and speed up the overall time on the job site, making you available to complete more jobs in a day and being more productive.

Overall, working as an HVAC technician is not easy. Nevertheless, now that you know what an HVAC technician should have in their trunk, you can perform this job more effectively thanks to possessing the proper equipment.