SEMA code of practice and HSE guidance, UK wide
Racking Inspections
Pallet racking fails quietly. A clipped upright looks like cosmetic damage for months until the run is loaded a little differently and a bay comes down on an aisle. AL23 Safety carries out expert racking inspections, sets up the internal inspection routine behind them and manages the repair programme for clients UK wide.
What is a racking inspection?
A structural check on storage equipment, not a damage list
A racking inspection is a systematic examination of your storage equipment against the configuration it was designed for. It looks at damage to uprights, beams and bracing, at whether the beam levels match the load notice, at component compatibility and at whether anything has been altered or relocated since installation.
The industry distinguishes a full expert inspection from a damage only survey. A damage only survey lists damaged items and locations. An expert inspection also asks whether the equipment is suitable for what is stored on it, whether components from different manufacturers have been mixed into a run and whether the load notices on display still describe the racking in front of you. The second question is the one that catches out most sites.
Who needs one
Anywhere racking is served by powered equipment
- Distribution centres and third party logistics sites with high pick rates and narrow aisles.
- Manufacturers holding raw material and finished goods on adjustable pallet racking.
- Retail and wholesale back of house storage, including mezzanine supported racking.
- Cold stores, where damage is harder to spot and repair access is restricted.
- Any site that has reconfigured beam levels, moved a run or bought racking second hand.
- Sites where forklift damage is reported informally and never recorded against a location.
The regulations that apply
Your legal framework, in plain terms
There is no racking specific regulation in the United Kingdom. The duty is built from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Racking is work equipment so the general equipment duties apply to it in full. The inspection regime everyone quotes comes from a European standard and from trade association guidance rather than from statute, which matters when you are deciding how often to do it.
HSWA 1974 section 2
The general duty to ensure the health and safety of employees so far as is reasonably practicable, which includes providing information such as load limits.
PUWER 1998 regulation 5
Work equipment must be maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.
PUWER 1998 regulation 6
Inspection is required where safety depends on installation conditions or where equipment is exposed to conditions causing deterioration liable to result in dangerous situations. Racking in a forklift served warehouse is exactly that.
Workplace Regulations 1992 regulation 5
Maintenance of the workplace and of the equipment within it.
BS EN 15635, steel static storage systems, application and maintenance of storage equipment
The standard behind the whole inspection regime, including the responsible person concept, the expert inspection at intervals not exceeding twelve months and regular visual inspection. It is a standard rather than law and it binds you only where legislation or contract calls it up.
The annual interval is guidance, not statute
This is worth saying plainly because a lot of marketing implies otherwise. PUWER sets no frequency for anything. The twelve month expert inspection comes from BS EN 15635 and from SEMA, the Storage Equipment Manufacturers' Association. The recommendation to designate a person responsible for racking safety is attributed by SEMA to HSG76, the HSE warehousing and storage guidance, which was published in 2007 and has not been revised since.
None of that makes the annual inspection optional in practice. If you depart from recognised industry guidance you have to show that what you did instead was at least as good and that argument is much harder to run after a collapse than before one. What it does mean is that the interval should be set by risk. A single shift, low throughput store may justify a different cycle from a twenty four hour cross dock and we will tell you which of those you are. The reasoning belongs in your risk assessment rather than in an email from an equipment supplier.
What we assess
Every upright and connection, run by run
- Upright damage at floor level and at each beam connection, run by run and location by location.
- Frame bracing, footplates, floor fixings and the condition of the slab beneath them.
- Beam condition, beam connector integrity and the presence of safety locks on every beam end.
- Deflection under load and residual deformation once the beam is unloaded, measured against the tolerances in the current SEMA guidance.
- Verticality and plumb of runs, including out of plumb caused by settlement rather than impact.
- Component compatibility, flagging where beams or frames from a different manufacturer have been mixed into a run.
- Configuration against the load notice, checking beam levels, spacings, unit load and bay load.
- Presence, legibility and accuracy of load notices on every run.
- Rack protection, including column guards, end of aisle barriers and their interaction with your workplace transport routes.
- Evidence of relocation or alteration since installation, which voids the original load calculation.
- Storage practice on the day, covering overhanging pallets, damaged pallets, hand loading at height and top level restraint.
- Your internal inspection records, damage reporting route and repair close-out history.
The classification we use
Green, amber and red, with a clock on the amber
Green
Damage is within acceptable SEMA limits. No remedial action is necessary. The item is recorded and monitored at subsequent inspections.
Amber
Damage exceeds allowable limits and requires action or repair, without being severe enough to warrant immediate action. Offload the affected positions and complete the remedial work within four weeks. Failure to repair within four weeks elevates the classification to red.
Red
A high degree of damage, well beyond allowable limits. Affected locations are offloaded immediately and removed from service until repaired or replaced.
We do not publish damage tolerances in millimetres on a website. The figures circulating online are reproduced from commercial sources rather than from SEMA. A number quoted out of context invites a maintenance team to make its own judgement about a bent upright. We measure against the tolerances in the current SEMA guidance and we show you the measurement on the day.
Our process
From drawings to a graded action plan
- 01
Pre-visit review
We collect layout drawings, original installation and load calculation documents, previous inspection reports and your damage log.
- 02
Full site inspection
We inspect every run and record findings by aisle, bay and level, photographing each classified item so it can be found again.
- 03
Report and classification
Every finding is graded green, amber or red, located precisely and given a defined action with a deadline.
- 04
Repair specification and oversight
We specify replacement rather than repair where the standard requires it, review contractor quotations and verify the work once complete.
- 05
Routine set-up
We train and brief your person responsible for racking safety, issue an inspection pro-forma and agree the reporting route for impact damage.
What you get
Findings by exact location you can act on
- A full inspection report listing every finding by exact location, with photographs and a green, amber or red classification.
- An action schedule with the four week amber deadline recorded against each item.
- A load notice review showing which notices are missing, illegible or no longer matching the configuration.
- A written statement of the racking configuration as found, against the configuration as designed.
- A visual inspection pro-forma for your own team, with guidance on what to escalate immediately.
- A recommended inspection interval with the reasoning behind it so you can defend the frequency you have chosen.
What we need from you
Drawings, past reports and aisle access
- Original installation drawings, load calculations and the manufacturer's name for each run.
- Previous inspection reports and any outstanding repair quotations.
- Access to aisles during a quieter period, with a lift truck and driver available where a top level needs viewing.
- The name of the person you have designated as responsible for racking safety.
- Your damage reporting procedure, even if it is currently a verbal one.
Why AL23 Safety
A red item called red on the day
Accountable
A red item is called red and it is offloaded that day. We do not downgrade findings to keep a run in service through peak.
Expert and chartered
Qualified professionals working to BS EN 15635 and current SEMA guidance, with the reasoning behind every classification written down.
Practical, not just compliant
We scope the work, appoint the right specialist, interpret the results and turn them into an action plan you can actually deliver, including what to fix this week and what to budget for.
UK wide
We inspect racking on single warehouses and national networks across the UK, alongside the wider warehouse health and safety picture.
Get the racking looked at before peak, not during it
Tell us the bay count and we will scope the visit
Aisle count, run length and number of beam levels are usually enough to size the job. If your real problem is repeat impact damage rather than the racking itself, we will say so and look at the traffic instead.
Common questions
Answers, up front
Cannot see your question? Get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Contact usIndustry guidance points to an expert inspection at intervals not exceeding twelve months, carried out by a professionally qualified racking inspector. Alongside that, SEMA recommends a weekly visual inspection by the person responsible for racking safety. BS EN 15635 frames the visual interval as regular, set by risk and a monthly cycle can be defensible in genuinely low activity storage. Weekly is the recommendation so if you go to monthly you need the risk based reasoning on file.
No. There is no racking specific regulation and PUWER sets no frequency. The annual interval is guidance from BS EN 15635 and SEMA rather than statute. The legal duty is to maintain the racking in good repair and to inspect it where deterioration could create a dangerous situation, which in a busy warehouse is very hard to satisfy without something close to the guidance interval.
Someone on your own team with the authority to stop use of a location and to raise a repair. Warehouse supervisors and shift managers are the usual choice. They need training in what damage looks like and what to escalate and they need the inspection to be part of their job rather than an extra favour. A person with no authority to offload a bay cannot do the role.
A damage survey lists damaged items and where they are. An expert inspection also assesses suitability and compatibility of the equipment, the rack configuration and manufacturer, component identification, correct application of load notices to specific racks and any issues arising from relocation or alteration. The cheaper survey will not tell you that a run has been rebuilt with the wrong beams.
There is no statutory duty to display a load notice as such. The duty comes from PUWER regulations 5 and 6 plus the section 2 duty to provide information and racking without a load notice cannot be loaded safely. Treat a missing notice as an information failure rather than a discrete offence. Remember that the notice is configuration specific so moving a beam level voids it until the loading is recalculated.
Cost is driven by the number of bays and beam levels, the number of aisles, whether original drawings exist, access constraints such as cold store operation and how many sites are in scope. A single warehouse of a few hundred bays is a day. A national network is a programme. Send a bay count and a site list and we will price it honestly.
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