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How to erect 18 foot tall pallet racking in 18' 2" tall space ?

Milacron

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4 sections of uprights 3' x 18' heavy duty series, currently sitting with all 4 sections on floor on edge, banded to each other. Space is a little tight and at casual glance I can't figure out a good safe way to raise up the sections (with forklift)....at least not without the bottoms of each scraping the hell out of my epoxy floor during the uprighting. Any ideas ? (also, any idea what each section probably weighs ? Probably way beyond "manhandling" eh ?)
 
I am installing racking and have some 20 foot by 42 inch wide uprights, they are too heavy to lift for one person <100 lbs. More importantly they are way too ungainly, I use my scissor lift to stand them up. Regarding the floor, many folks with painted floors use a sheet of masonite to protect the floor when doing stuff that can mar the finish.

Steve
 
I have erected all my ridge-u-rack by hand....granted only 12' high at the most.

It's a bit iffy with one person, your 18' high will need (2) people.

Stand up one rack, (maybe tie it off to forklift to keep straight up)
Insert first cross rail, down about 4' even if you don't want it there,
it's a temp.

Walk up second 18' rack, mate cross rail.

Now your safe. add second cross rail at 4', add pallet or "flooring" climb up.

Maybe your racking is full cantilever, and much Heavier ?
 
I have erected all my ridge-u-rack by hand....granted only 12' high at the most.

It's a bit iffy with one person, your 18' high will need (2) people.

Stand up one rack, (maybe tie it off to forklift to keep straight up)
Insert first cross rail, down about 4' even if you don't want it there,
it's a temp.

Walk up second 18' rack, mate cross rail.

Now your safe. add second cross rail at 4', add pallet or "flooring" climb up.

Maybe your racking is full cantilever, and much Heavier ?

I like the assemble in place method here. I did mine this way, but it is much smaller and was easily a 2 person job. For yours, hold the uprights with the scissor lift, install rails,repeat.
I think it sounds safer than trying to wiggle an entire assembly up that is already 18' tall.
 
I might take the Milwaukee Portaband and saw off a few inches as that would help a bit as well.

Seeing how you don't need these to go all the way to the ceiling, (assume a 4' high box, within 6" of the ceiling)
You could chop them off at about 164" leaving you with a couple of uprights 52" high.

These I have used for a stout workbench, or just to put a rack up 1 box high.
 
Seeing how you don't need these to go all the way to the ceiling, (assume a 4' high box, within 6" of the ceiling)
You could chop them off at about 164" leaving you with a couple of uprights 52" high.

These I have used for a stout workbench, or just to put a rack up 1 box high.

I'm doing this in my loft where I have low headroom. However, I'm leaving my uprights close to ceiling height so I can bolt rack uprights to the ceiling with angle brackets for added stability. (I'm using narrower racking for heavy shelving, rather than true pallet rack)
 
I'm doing this in my loft where I have low headroom. However, I'm leaving my uprights close to ceiling height so I can bolt rack uprights to the ceiling with angle brackets for added stability. (I'm using narrower racking for heavy shelving, rather than true pallet rack)

Yup, I came across some 12' high 24" deep sections, need to run 2 x 4's accross them, thinking one little
tremor (we have had them before) and they would fall down, they are spindly looking.

They are fine for me, I have no forklift, and put plywood on them to make shelving. (hand loaded)
 
You need to tip them up sideways so they will need the least headroom to pivot. Use a scissors lift - I had a crane installed a few years ago, and the crew used a scissors lift to hoist the beams up with no problem.

If necessary, you can always snip a few inches from the top end without affecting their capacity - a Porta-Band would probably be the easiest way.
 
If you have fire sprinklers find out how high you can stack stuff, ask your insurance agent or the fire department, before you cut the uprights off. Old carpet or cardboard can be used to tilt up stuff that may wreck the floor.
Bill D.
 
If necessary, you can always snip a few inches from the top end without affecting their capacity - a Porta-Band would probably be the easiest way.

My point about "chopping some off the top" is to do it with a little thought.

If you just hack off a couple of inches, if you go to re-sell them, you've got a hacked up
oddball height.

You only need the uprights to go up to hold the highest cross piece, my math showed about 168" which
is a nice even 14'.

The remaining piece can be used elsewhere, where as the "hacked off stub" is just scrap.
 
I have seen machine skates used under the ends of larger loads when up righting them before in confined spaces, takes the weight and slides nicely as the other ends raised vertically.
 
There were two South Carolina farm hands, neither one had much common sense. They were told by their boss to put a mule in the barn.

When they led the mule over to the barn, they saw that the mule's ears were too long and that he would not fit into the barn. So they put their heads together and decided to get a ladder and a saw and saw the header of the barn door out so the mule could walk right on in the barn.

They started sawing but just then the boss walked over to them and asked them why they were sawing out the top of the barn door. When they told him the mule's ears were too long to go into the barn, the boss said:

"Why don't you just get a shovel and dig the dirt out of the ground below, then the mule could walk on in"

The two goobers looked at each other and said "His ears are too long -- not his feet!"
 
I have used my scissor lift for things like this many times though I have a JLG 2646e3. I would either get another guy, or loosely tie the scissor lift to correct measurement to the racks and raise the lift from the ground controls. Then you can man handle the bottom and anchor it down. Then you just have to climb the lift and untie it.
 
The thing to remember is if you have a fire sprinkler system, for insurance purposes, there must be an eighteen inch clearance from the top of the highest item on the rack to the bottom of the sprinkler head. This will enable the water pattern to properly disperse in the unfortunate event of a fire. This number actually holds for all storage. The worst offenders in my years of inspection were in offices. Nothing like file boxes stacked to the ceiling on top of stationary cabinets. Both a fire obstruction for the sprinklers as well as a danger to those working to get a box down.
 
The thing to remember is if you have a fire sprinkler system, for insurance purposes, there must be an eighteen inch clearance from the top of the highest item on the rack to the bottom of the sprinkler head. This will enable the water pattern to properly disperse in the unfortunate event of a fire. This number actually holds for all storage. The worst offenders in my years of inspection were in offices. Nothing like file boxes stacked to the ceiling on top of stationary cabinets. Both a fire obstruction for the sprinklers as well as a danger to those working to get a box down.
Good advice as I once asked a fireman how a building might still burn with a sprinkler system and that was the main culprit. Unfortunately my new place does not have sprinkler system.
 
The thing to remember is if you have a fire sprinkler system, for insurance purposes, there must be an eighteen inch clearance from the top of the highest item on the rack to the bottom of the sprinkler head. This will enable the water pattern to properly disperse in the unfortunate event of a fire. This number actually holds for all storage. The worst offenders in my years of inspection were in offices. Nothing like file boxes stacked to the ceiling on top of stationary cabinets. Both a fire obstruction for the sprinklers as well as a danger to those working to get a box down.

Yup,
and some storage shelves for paint (in buckets) required the sprinkler piping on each shelf.
Was a real expensive PIA to hook up, and take down. Lot's of vitaulic couplings.
 
There were two South Carolina farm hands, neither one had much common sense. They were told by their boss to put a mule in the barn.

When they led the mule over to the barn, they saw that the mule's ears were too long and that he would not fit into the barn. So they put their heads together and decided to get a ladder and a saw and saw the header of the barn door out so the mule could walk right on in the barn.

They started sawing but just then the boss walked over to them and asked them why they were sawing out the top of the barn door. When they told him the mule's ears were too long to go into the barn, the boss said:

"Why don't you just get a shovel and dig the dirt out of the ground below, then the mule could walk on in"

The two goobers looked at each other and said "His ears are too long -- not his feet!"
Funny but I recall that being two Tennessee farm hands ;)
 
Just an update that I finally got around to putting up my pallet rack. I ended up cutting it to 16 feet height. That part was easy as falling off a log with the Milwaukee Portaband. Ah, but the rest of it...what a PITA. Definitely assemble as much as possible while it's still on the floor...especially the support beams that will end up near a wall. But it was still a PITA...even with forklift and scissor lift available. Remind me to never ever get a job that involves assembling that stuff ! :willy_nilly:
 








 
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