Racking Safety

Racking should be treated like any other piece of equipment under Health and Safety legislation and guideleines.  The HSE guideleines for racking safety are specifically detailed in HSG 76, see the link on the right, for  a copy. Most importantly Racking must be subject to routuine inspections by a competent person.

Racking takes considerable loads through the uprights, these loads are transmitted through the beams. As with any structure the loads are designed to be transfered between the component is direct lines of force.

When these lines of force are distorted then the capacity of of the structure is reduced.

Racking safety relies on the structure remaining with in acceptable tolerance. The Industry Standard (SEMA) code for tolerances can be summarised as:

Uprights; Frontal distortion no more than 3mm over 1000mm, thats the width of a pound coin.
Uprights; Lateral distortion no more than 5mm over 1000mm.
Bracing ; No more than 10mm over 1000mm
Beams; no distortion, except approved load deflection, is accpetable.

There are other requirements for footplates, tie bars, load notices etc.

See below for details of our innovative Racking Damage Tolerance Guage

Other Pages

• Racking Damage Tolerance Gauge

Health & Safety
Executive - HSG76

For information on how the law affects you in your warehouse, download the official Health & Safety Executive form HSG76 here:
hg76.pdf