Selective Pallet Rack

The one to ten ratio of pallet storage to the square footage of your warehouse.

Selective Pallet Rack is the most common type of rack used to vertically store product.  In this arrangement, rack is usually arranged in back to back rows, starting with a single row against a building wall.  The aisle, or space between rows, should be wide enough to accommodate the fork truck used to pick and place pallets.  In most cases the aisle width is approximately 12'-0".  Thus, when considering the back to back row will occupy approximately 8'-0" of floor space, the actual space dedicated for storage will be 40%, while aisles will require the remaining 60% of floor space.  The vertical space used will depend on two items; the vertical space available in the warehouse, and the lifting height of the fork truck.  As an example, if you have 22'-0" clear height in your warehouse, and if your pallets are approximately 4'-0" high, you should be able to store one pallet on the floor, plus, on beam levels at 5'-0", 10'-0" and 15'-0".  The general rule of thumb is to add 12 inches to the pallet height to determine the vertical space from 'beam to beam'.

Lets look at a quick example.... say you have a building with 10,000 square feet of usable floor space, and lets assume the building columns are located on 40'-0" centers.  In this arrangement, 4,000 sq. ft. will be used for selective rack, while the remaining 6,000 sq. ft. will be used for aisles.  Assuming a standard GMA pallet, 48" deep by 40" wide, by 48" high, you will be able to store 2 pallets wide, by 4 high, by 2 deep, in each 'back to back' bay of rack, or 16 pallets in (8' x 8') 64 sq. ft. of floor space.  Dividing 64 into 4,000, gives you an estimate of 62 back to back bays.  Multiplying 62 bays time 16 pallets, results in 992 pallets, or approximately 1 pallet of storage for every 10 sq. ft of warehouse space.