A bent upright loses capacity long before it looks dangerous. We inspect your racking against the configuration it was engineered for, classify every fault by severity, and give you a written report with the repairs listed in the order they matter.
Rack inspections across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties, and all of Southern California. The onsite visit is free.
Call (949) 285-6101 and we will find a time that suits your operation.
Why racking gets inspected
Racking is engineered for a specific configuration and a specific load. Once a frame is bent, a beam is moved or a pallet gets heavier than the one the rack was designed around, the capacity written on the rack is no longer the capacity you have. Keeping that in check is the rack owner’s responsibility, not the manufacturer’s and not the forklift driver’s.
There is no single right interval. How often you need a look depends on your forklift traffic, your turn rate and what has hit the rack since anyone last checked. A high throughput cold store earns more attention than a slow moving parts warehouse.
What gets checked
What California expects of you
Nobody sets a fixed interval for rack inspections. There is no federal rule written specifically for storage racking, and no rule anywhere that says how often racking has to be looked at. What California does expect is that you inspect on a schedule you set, that the schedule is written down, and that you can show what was found and what was fixed. Keep those records for at least a year.
- Racking cannot be loaded past what it was designed to carry. That is the one hard line, and it is the owner’s to hold.
- Once racking is up, keeping it sound sits with the owner. It does not stop being your responsibility because someone else installed it.
- If your racking is eight feet or taller to the top load level, you should have been handed a certificate of compliance when it went in. A lot of warehouse managers have never seen theirs. It is worth finding out whether yours exists.
- Stack above twelve feet and the fire department has its own set of requirements for the space, including a layout plan that has to be checked every year. That check is about the plan, not the steel.
- Damage does not wait for the next inspection. If a frame is hit, unload that bay, keep it out of service, and repair or replace before anything goes back on it.
The industry body that publishes the rack design standard suggests a look at least once a year, and more often where forklift traffic and turnover are heavy. That is a recommendation, not a rule. What we do is tell you what your racking is actually doing, and what it will cost to put right.
When to schedule one
- After a forklift hits a frame, even when it still looks straight.
- After an earthquake, before the racking is reloaded.
- After re-slotting, when beam levels move or the pallet changes weight.
- Before you lease or buy a building, so the racking you inherit is a known quantity.
- Ahead of an insurance or regulatory walkthrough.
What you get back
A written report, bay by bay, with each fault photographed, located and classified by severity so you can tell what has to come out of service today from what goes on next quarter’s list.
Where a repair is needed we quote the part and the labor. Where a component is past repair we say so. We install racking as well as inspect it, so the crew quoting the repair is the crew that does it.
See the racking systems we install, or read more about warehouse rack inspections.
Rack inspections across Southern California
Thirty years of building, moving and repairing racking in the same six counties. Crews cover Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura.
City of Industry · Fontana · Ontario · Long Beach · Oxnard · San Diego · All of Southern California
Schedule your free onsite visit
Tell us where the warehouse is and roughly how many bays. We walk the racking with you, put the findings in writing, and price anything that needs doing. Or call (949) 285-6101.