Picture this: stacks of boxes, bulky filing cabinets, and shelves filled to the brim with irregularly shaped items. It's a lot of weight to manage — not just for the shelves but for the floor underneath.
The right storage system can help bring order to the chaos, but there's one critical factor you can't overlook: floor loading. When planning the best storage solution for your space, size and shape matter, but so does understanding how weight impacts your space from the ground up.
Customizing Solutions: More than Just Specs
High-density storage systems are built to precise specifications, and designed to handle specific weight capacities. For designers customizing a storage solution, this means understanding what the equipment can support and how that weight interacts with the building's floor loading limits. In many cases, creating the perfect solution requires more than just familiarity with shelving specs — it takes a careful assessment of both storage needs and structural considerations.
The Patterson Pope process begins by getting to know your space and your stuff. Our sales reps visit your facility to ask all the right questions and get a feel for what you're storing and where. With years of experience under their belts, they come prepared with tape measures, laser tools, and even a scale, making sure no detail is overlooked.
Preparation is key, which sometimes means spending time weighing different types of stored items to get an accurate figure for the pounds-per-inch of shelving. After all, guessing isn't an option when designing a solution that's built to last.
The Georgia State University Library needed a tailored solution to account for their tightly packed shelves. Unlike libraries where shelves might only be 75% full due to book circulation, GSU requires mobile storage designed to handle consistently high-weight loads.
To make sure the shelves could handle the load, we got hands-on — literally. Our team went through the stacks, weighing different sizes of law books to get a clear picture of the demands. Turns out, the weight was closer to 2.0 pounds per inch, well above the typical 1.5 to 1.75 pounds per inch we usually plan for.
High-density mobile storage is all about maximizing space, but it also concentrates the weight. What used to be spread out across multiple shelves and aisles gets packed into a much smaller area. That's a lot for any structure to handle.
At GSU, there was another wrinkle. Atlanta is a Category B Seismic design area. That meant the shelving plan needed to be structurally secure, not just for the weight but also to withstand moderate shaking if the ground decided to move.
At Clayton State University, the new library came with its own set of challenges. The mobile storage units were headed for the upper floor of a new construction building that was using post-tension beams. Drilling into the floor risked snapping a beam cable — definitely something to avoid. So, we teamed up with a structural engineer, pored over the blueprints, and even x-rayed the floor to make sure everything was safe and sound.
Modern buildings are designed with pinpoint precision, calculated to use only what's absolutely necessary — no extra "fudge factor" like engineers might have included 40 or 50 years ago. This lean approach keeps construction costs down, but it also means there's little room for error when it comes to floor loading. Whether a building is brand new or decades old, the higher the floor, the more crucial it becomes to understand the weight of the media and other items.
Figuring out the best storage system starts with one big question: What are you storing? Weight plays a huge role — it's not just about picking the right shelves, it's about ensuring they can handle the load and that the structure underneath can keep everything safe.
Take a media library full of sound and video recordings or a museum housing rare Egyptian artifacts. To get the right solution, you need to know the size and weight of what's being stored. And in archival storage, it's not always as simple as opening every box — especially when you're dealing with items that are anything but standard. Sometimes the only way forward is to grab a scale and start weighing.
It's not the quickest process, but that's what sets us apart. At Patterson Pope, we take the time to get it right because your storage system shouldn't just work. It should work perfectly, no matter the weight or the challenge.