THE HEIGHTS OF YOUR UPRIGHTS!

A lesson in height. We are often asked about the height of an upright and how high clients can go with them, and my response is usually “as high as your equipment will take you”. You see when it comes to uprights, height limits are often not a result of engineering but rather that of client limitations. There is a formula that the industry uses called the height-to-depth (HTD) ratio. This basically states that for every 1’ of upright depth you can safely take your upright height to 6’ (ratio 6-to-1). Therefore, with a 42” deep upright you can safely take your upright to a height of 21’. However, typical uprights are 20’ which would result in a 5.714 HTD ratio (safely with in the industry HTD ratio). Now 20’ does not seem like an extraordinary amount height. What if your equipment could lift 25’? Well then you have two options. First, the HTD ratio for a double row (see figure 1-1) would essentially double that of a single row. Therefore, your HTD ratio on a double row that has an overall depth of 8’ would have a height limit of 48’. This is why you typically will never have any height issues with back-to-back rows. Now, if you want to go higher than 21’ with a single row it is a little more thought-provoking but still easily achievable. Simply stated, you will just need one or more of the following (depending on your area’s seismic requirements): a larger baseplate, different anchors, and possibly some cross aisle ties. Bottom line, at EFS we will walk you through your layout, answer any/ all questions, and ensure that you can have peace of mind that your solution is always our priority.