HOW YOUR BUSINESS DETERMINES YOUR RACKING NEEDS
In this episode, Tracy explains the concept of “form follows function” in regards to your pallet racking needs! Knowing how you’re using your pallet racking and what you’re storing on it is necessary for selling you the right material. Are you a warehouse? Looking for backroom space for your retail business? Your business will determine what sort of racking you will need, and how it will be set up. The more information you are able to provide in regards to your business and your storage needs, the more accurate your quote and order will be!
What You’ll Learn
- The elements that make up your racking system, and how to reference them.
- What aspects of your racking may be most important to your industry.
- How your business can determine your racking needs.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION BELOW!
Transcript for the video/audio
Tracy Jackson: Hi! Welcome to Simply Rack and Warehouse Equipment’s informational videos, I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Tracy Jackson from Simply Rack. I’m an owner at Simply Rack and have been in this industry for over 30 years. I absolutely love my career, this racking is just a passion of mine, but there are some specifics that, if you’re ordering for the first time, you’re going to want to know.
Before we talk, to get you the right material you’ll hear me refer to form follows function a lot. I need to know how you’re using it, and what you’re storing on it, to properly sell you the right material. So just for the simple basics of getting started, for either a warehouse, a back room storage, or just your shop, of what we’re looking for to get you the proper material. If you’re storing pallets on the racking, there’s specific racking that you’ll need to buy, specific sizes with certain capacities. If you’re just hand stacking the product on there, have a lot of small pieces or a couple of large boxes, the average rule of thumb is no deeper than the average man’s, arm which is 36 inches.
Stepping back and looking at the parts that we’re talking about, on what you need. The green piece in this video is called an upright. An upright is what holds the racking in the air, and it consists of a front column and a back column combined with bracing material, and it’s anchored to the concrete floor with wedge anchors. The beams in this picture are orange, there’s a front beam and a back beam, and typically you have wire decking in the middle to help transfer the weight of the pallets to the beams or hold your hand stack materials. This also acts for fire code to separate each level in case there’s a fire, so you don’t have pallets falling from the top to the bottom and causing a larger fire. This fire suppression system can work a little better at that point.
We’ve got uprights green, beams orange and wire decking. Please don’t refer to color, because once in a while you’re going to have blue, purple, whatever color in the world there is in racking, so it’s an upright, a beam and wire deck.
These items are row spacers. Row spacers create the flue space for the back of the pallet when it’s stored to sit so it’s not overhanging in the front.
When we get into our next video sessions, we’re going to specifically talk about sizes and what sizes you need based on your product, but again, upright, beams, wire deck. You now know 90 percent of what we need to know when you need racking. Thank you!