The questions shippers ask most about pallet storage, racking and floor space — answered plainly by a BC-based storage & 3PL specialist.
How do I calculate how much warehouse space I need?
Start with one pallet’s footprint — length × width ÷ 144 for square feet (a 48×40 pallet is about 13.3 ft²). Divide your total pallets by how many you stack or rack high to get floor positions, multiply positions by the footprint for the storage footprint, then add an allowance for aisles and staging — about 35% for racked, about 22% for dense floor stacking. This tool does all of that and draws it to your real pallet size.
What’s the difference between racked and floor-stacked?
Racked (selective racking) puts each pallet on its own beam, so it can go several levels high even if the goods aren’t stackable — the rack carries the load. It needs aisles between rows. Floor-stacked (block stacking) sets pallets directly on each other for the densest floor use, but only works for stable, non-crushable freight and only the top pallet is reachable (LIFO).
How high can I stack or rack?
Racking commonly goes 4–6 levels high (high-bay buildings go higher). Floor stacking is limited by stability — typically 2–3 high, and only with strong, uniform, non-crushable loads. And you can never stack more pallets than you have: one pallet is always one high.
What pallet sizes fit in standard racking?
A standard selective-rack bay clear-spans about 108 inches along the beam and holds pallets up to about 48 inches deep into the frame (frame depth is usually the pallet depth minus ~6 inches, with a few inches of overhang). A long pallet — say 96 × 48 in — racks fine across a bay. Pallets deeper than ~48 in or wider than a bay need deep-frame, wide-span or drive-in racking.