Pallet Rack Safety

Pallet racking should be visually inspected by trained staff on a regular schedule, typically weekly or monthly depending on how busy the warehouse is, with a full inspection by a qualified professional at least once a year. CSA Standard A344 sets out these inspection practices. It is a guideline rather than a law on its own, but provincial workplace health and safety regulations require employers to keep equipment in safe condition, and inspectors commonly use CSA A344 as the benchmark. Keeping documented inspection records is the best way to show compliance, and NAS Group can perform professional inspections and help set a schedule based on how your facility operates.

Visible bending or twisting in upright columns, broken welds, missing beam safety clips, and loose or dislodged floor anchors are all signs of an immediate safety risk. If a forklift impact has caused visible damage, the affected bay should be unloaded, isolated, and tagged out of service right away until it is professionally repaired or replaced. If you're unsure, NAS Group can assess the damage and recommend whether the bay can stay in service.

Under provincial workplace health and safety legislation across Canada, employers and facility owners are responsible for maintaining a safe workplace, and that includes storage racking. Failing to document regular inspections, ignoring visible forklift damage, or missing load capacity plaques can lead to regulatory fines, stop-work orders, and significant legal liability if a structural failure occurs.

A pallet rack inspection report should identify every damaged component by location, rank each issue by severity, and recommend repairs or replacements with a clear priority. Once repairs are complete, you should also receive documentation confirming the work meets engineering specifications, since this is what auditors and safety inspectors will ask to see. NAS Group provides detailed inspection reports and, once its teams complete repairs, structural engineering sign-offs and compliance documentation.

Yes. Pallet racking should display load capacity plaques, typically mounted at row ends, showing the maximum safe load for each beam level and bay. Missing or outdated plaques are a common finding during workplace safety inspections, and plaques need to be updated whenever racking is reconfigured, since changing beam heights can change the system's capacity. NAS Group supplies engineered load capacity plaques that clearly identify the safe working load for each bay and level of your system.