SECOND-HAND VS NEW RACKING

There is a vibrant second hand pallet racking market in the UK. However it is perhaps not as big a market as you might think. Before deciding whether to buy secondhand you must ensure that you have taken all reasonable precautions to ensure that the racking is safe. Logically there is no difference between racking that you may have purchased new say five years ago and then dismantled and re-erected in another building to used racking purchased from a third party of the same age. But in this second scenario can you be sure of how the racking has been looked after. One of the biggest problems with racking is if it has been kept outside for any period of time. If it has the inside of the beams could be rusting thus affecting the load carrying capacity.

Some Recommendations:

1) Only buy secondhand if you know the history of the racking from new;
2) Beware of "refurbished" racking, this could mean that the rust has been painted over;
3) Only buy the racking if it has been kept inside;
4) Only buy the racking if the supplier will put SEMA load notices on the racks;
5) Only buy racking that is still readily available new should spares be needed;
6) Always get a price for new as believe it or not it can sometimes be cheaper.

Identify Pallet Racking:

If you are having difficulty identifying your pallet racking system or do not know where to go for spares we offer a free identification service. Send a picture of your racking upright and beam connector and we will attempt to identify a bona fide source for extras.

Fill in your details below and attach your pictures.

Space Utilisation Calculator:

Deciding which pallet racking system is best has a number of factors. We attempt here to give an idea of how effective each of the rack systems are. As a starting point we take an area of 20 metres x 20 metres x 6.5 metres high. We assume that the pallet is 1200mm wide x 1000mm deep x 1200mm high and that they can be block stacked with 1 access aisle. We refer to this as 100% utilization.

Standard pallet racking with reach truck 35% utilisation
Standard pallet racking with VNA truck 44%
Articulated truck with standard racking 44%
Drive in racking 65%
Mobile racking 62%
Double deep racking with reach truck 70%

Obviously as warehouses vary these figures may change.