How to Store Long and Heavy Items
Storing boxes and plastic containers full of goods is relatively easy – these things often stack or sit neatly together with no problems and they can easily be put on and off standard shelving/racking systems. Larger materials, like lengths of pipe or heavier and more unwieldy items like timber, sheets and panels are more complicated, as are pallets that need to be positioned by a pallet truck or a forklift. They need a separate, specially designed storage system. Here’s our guide:
Cantilever racking
Cantilever racking is designed for longer items – planks, pipes, tubes, poles, etc. They usually consist of floor-standing posts with arms spaced at various points up the length. When two or more of these posts are placed in sequence, the bar or plank to be stored can be placed on the corresponding arms, keeping your items neatly stored in groups and off the floor.
Options here include fixed distance, where the posts are connected to each other, and freestanding, where you can place them as close together or as far apart as you want. As with pallet racking, you should fix these to the floor or wall so they don’t fall or get knocked over. For maximum storage, cantilever racking can be found with arms both front and back, and in increasing heights for more storage over the same floor space.
Pallet racking
Pallets can be tricky to store and keep organised, but most warehouse and distribution centres will have to deal with them at some point in the distribution cycle. Pallet racking is the answer – it’s like standard shelving, but super-sized for use with pallets. These heavy-duty units are designed and built with forklift or pallet trucks in mind, making them super easy to load and unload, and keep all your pallets perfectly organised. Models can have capacity for 12 pallets up to 24 or more, with choices of either timber or mesh shelves – for a focus on either strength or air flow.
Because of the immense weight that these racking solutions are designed to hold, and the heights they can reach, pallet racking will need to be bolted into the ground to ensure that it cannot tip, overbalance or be knocked over.
Vertical racking
Vertical racks are available in a huge range of options. They can be as simple as hoops standing up from a base plate, between which you can store sheet materials like plywood or fence panelling, or more complex with a base plate and tall posts that have bars or hoops integrated into them for a broad range of storage uses. Vertical racking is designed for access and organisation, so for sites where your staff or customers might need to quickly identify the specific size or type of item that they need, grab it and go.
Vertical storage makes the most out of limited space – rather than storing large panels, sheets and the like horizontally, where they naturally take up the most floor space, you are storing them standing up on the sides or top, so they take up air space rather than floor space.
