{"id":1156,"date":"2010-12-07T19:32:49","date_gmt":"2010-12-08T01:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/?p=1156"},"modified":"2023-06-12T22:07:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T03:07:52","slug":"pallet-rack-wire-decking-calculating-gauges-and-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/07\/pallet-rack-wire-decking-calculating-gauges-and-capacity\/","title":{"rendered":"Pallet Rack Wire Decking: Calculating Gauges and Capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 700px; height: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/images.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/WireDeckingNW.jpg\" alt=\"pallet rack wire decking\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Wire gauge is a crucial element in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/category\/9998\/pallet-rack-decking\">wire pallet rack deck<\/a> design and is\u00a0also one of the first places manufacturers look to when needing to cut costs, meaning it&#8217;s one of the first places <em>you<\/em> should look when comparing decking for your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/category\/1288\/pallet-rack\">pallet rack<\/a> project. Lower cost is great, but only if you&#8217;re getting the capacity and durability you need.<\/p>\n<p>Just because two decks are the same size in no way makes them the same deck. Here are the critical differences:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Understanding wire gauge types<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right; width: 100%; max-width: 288px; height: auto; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 10px;\" src=\"\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/images\/category\/Nashville-Wire\/closeupdeck.jpg\" alt=\"pallet rack wire deck installed on a beam\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Wire gauges can be confusing. At one point, the gauge referred to the number of drawing dies the wire passed through in the production process &#8211; higher numbers meant finer wires. But this didn&#8217;t help people understand what product they would be installing on their racks. Several standards have existed, also muddying the waters.<\/p>\n<h4>The bottom line for capacity<\/h4>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the real number you need to keep in mind: what is the wire diameter? Below are the most common gauges for wire decking:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>4-gauge, .222&#8243;<\/li>\n<li>5-gauge, .207&#8243;<\/li>\n<li>6-gauge: .192&#8243;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to the Moen &amp; Washburn standard, a true 5-gauge wire is measured at .207&#8243; diameter.\u00a0 Other standards might define 5 gauge as fine as .182&#8243; in diameter.\u00a0 That minor difference may not seem like much, but every bit of material removed lowers the decks capacity.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Bottom line: the more a deck weighs, the better its capacity should be.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But digging through these specs, many of which a provider might not publish, can be time consuming and frustrating. A very cut &amp; dried solution: \u00a0look at the <strong>weight per part<\/strong>.\u00a0Deck weights should be listed on the part number when you look at decking options.\u00a0 If you are comparing\u00a0two suppliers for a project make sure you\u00a0are comparing similar parts. Any obscurement that may be going on is ferreted out by the weight. A sturdier deck weighs more. If the difference is more than a pound per deck, double check. Make certain it&#8217;s going to hold your heaviest load and that it&#8217;s robust enough to take the punishment wire decks are supposed to take.<\/p>\n<h4>What about older decking in my warehouse?<\/h4>\n<p>If you are dealing with decks that were installed before you inherited the warehouse, try to find a brand or part number on the decks. From there it&#8217;s a simple web search to determine the deck&#8217;s capacity and weight. If that fails, look for older purchase documents that might tell you. You can weigh that decking, but that isn&#8217;t a true measure of its capacity. If you are trying to take on very heavy pallets or challenging loads and aren&#8217;t sure of a deck&#8217;s origins or true capacity, it may be safer to replace it.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/category\/1288\/pallet-rack\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px height: auto; width: 100%; max-width: 700px;\" src=\"\/\/images.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Pallet-Racks-Banner.jpg\" alt=\"Pallet Rack Pages\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wire gauge is a crucial element in wire pallet rack deck design and is\u00a0also one of the first places manufacturers look to when needing to cut costs, meaning it&#8217;s one of the first places you should look when comparing decking for your pallet rack project. Lower cost is great, but only if you&#8217;re getting the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[128,707,66],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pallet-rack","tag-industrial-storage","tag-pallet-rack","tag-wire-decking"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2027-04-18 22:20:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28189,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions\/28189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}