5 Ways To Maintain And Prolong The Life Of Pallet Racking

If you’ve just bought new pallet racking (or want to avoid replacing your old pallet racking), it’s likely you want to get the most life out of it. After all, pallet racking can be an expensive investment for a business. There’s no sense in not maintaining and taking care of your pallet racking and then having to repair or replace it in the future.

As with many things, prevention is better than the cure, so a lot of ensuring that your pallet racking last a long time is just avoiding damage. Although that’s often easier said than done, we do have some tips on making sure your pallet racking lasts as long as possible.

Have Your Pallet Racking Professionally Installed

Professionally installed pallet racking will likely last longer than self installed pallet racking. Professional installers build pallet racking every day in all sorts of different situations and layouts. They’ve seen it all and know how to solve racking installation problems. With experience also comes quality, so you know they’ll do a good job of installing your pallet racking.

Installing pallet racking yourself, on the other hand, can lead to mistakes that you’re not even aware of until signs of damage start to show.

Another thing to keep in mind with professionally installed pallet racking is that if something does go wrong, it can be rectified by the installer. If something goes wrong with a self install, it’s likely you’ll have to pay someone to fix it.

Don’t Overload Your Pallet Racking

This one probably goes without saying, but overloaded racking does happen. Some people think that overloading racking temporarily is fine, or that overloading it just a little bit will be OK. Any kind of overloading can damage pallet racking quite quickly and, if it’s not damaged right away, beams will warp over time. We’ve also seen situations where a “temporarily” overloaded rack turns into a rack that’s always overloaded, leading to more damage over time.

The only way to prevent pallet racking damage from overloading is to not overload pallet racking. Being conscious of the loads you’re putting on the racking will ensure you can keep using your racking year after year.

Keep A Tidy Warehouse

A clean warehouse is a safe warehouse.

Keeping your warehouse well laid out and tidy will ensure that accidents that could potentially damage pallet racking don’t happen. If there’s garbage or debris on the floor that a forklift needs to go around, that forklift may hit pallet racking, damaging both the racking and the forklift. This is just one example.

Another example would be a warehouse with poor lighting. If warehouse workers can’t see properly, they could easily knock racking with pallets, adding to general ware and tare.

If you want your pallet racking to last, make it easy to work around.

Fix Damage Quickly

Even the best pallet racking in the best warehouse gets damaged from time. Although we want to minimise it, people make mistakes.

When damage does happen, don’t just wait for your annual pallet racking inspection, make sure it’s fixed quickly. Damage can easily get worth over time, especially if that damage is compromising the amount of weight that pallet racking can hold.

If damaged pallet racking is fixed quickly, then you’re done with the issue. If it takes too long to fix an issue, there may be more damage, leading to more cost and more downtime for your pallet racking.

Promote A Culture Of Safety At Your Warehouse

Nobody wants damage or accidents to happen, but these things can be avoided if workers are more safety conscious. Because of this, the best way to maintain the lifespan of pallet racking is to make sure that everybody in the warehouse respects safety and respects the need for the pallet racking to be in the best condition possible.

And a safe warehouse culture has more benefits than just making sure the pallet racking lasts as long as possible. A safe warehouse culture makes sure people don’t get hurt and that the warehouse is running as efficiently as possible. And ultimately, that’s what everybody wants.