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Industrial Structure Information Blog

Author Archives: Derick

Limiting the spread of COVID-19 with Acrylic Face Shields

Health and safety has always been a great concern of ours over here at A-mezz. From safety gates preventing falls to industrial guard rail helping keep forklift traffic where it belongs, we’ve had your back. As businesses reopen across the country during this pandemic, an old concern has grown increasingly important: the spread of communicable diseases. On my rare ventures out, I’ve noticed a lot of people are not following the recommended guidelines for minimizing the viral spread. There are countless people standing within 6 feet of one another. Many of them don’t have a mask on or are improperly wearing a mask by leaving their noses uncovered. It is important to have another form of barrier protection to help minimize the risk to our employees, so A-mezz is adding acrylic face shields to its product line.

Our new line of acrylic face shields are ideal for any industry where in-person communication is recommended or required, such as banks, coffee shops, or reception desks. The transparent acrylic material is durable, and allows for face-to-face communication without masks while helping protect both participants from viral spread due to coughing or sneezing. They are all American made, easy to assemble, and are available in desktop, tabletop, and floor stand models. We even have a X-shaped design to split up break room tables. As we attempt to reopen the economy during this global pandemic, it is important that we each do our part to try and limit the spread. These acrylic face shields will help responsibly facilitate a return to normal face-to-face business.

See here for more information on the various styles and sizes we offer.

Why You Need to Protect your Equipment with Guardrail

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Damage to modular building panel from run in with fork truck tine

Regardless of how much training you’ve had, or how careful you are, accidents can happen. Even your best fork truck driver can make a mistake. I recently had a customer contact me with just such a situation.

Last year the customer had put in a quality assurance lab and office using our A-wall modular building system. Unfortunately, their best fork truck driver slipped up and ran into the wall. They were lucky: no one was injured, and he was able to stop before he caused any significant structural damage. It did however knock a knock a 2”x4” hole on the one side of the wall panel and a larger hole on the inside where it pushed through. Since the damage was localized to a couple small holes in a single panel and there was no structural damage to any of the other components, the customer contacted a local drywall contractor to repair the damage to the panel, and we were able to provide him with a sheet of vinyl to cover the patches with.

use industrial guardrail to protect your equipment and personnel in areas with fork traffic

Industrial guardrail protects your equipment from fork traffic

This all could have been avoided if the customer put up a line of industrial guardrail around the perimeter. Our industrial guardrail is available in single and double rail configurations, and our standard non-liftout system is designed for a 10,000 lb at 4 mph breakthrough. It’s bolt together design is easy to install and comes with all required hardware, including the concrete anchors. We offer a wide variety of lengths and off-center welded baseplates to configure a layout that will best fit your facility’s layout. We can even provide you with a heavy duty gate system that can stop a 13,500 lb fork truck moving at 6.5 mph, yet fold out of the wall to allow passage. Next time you’re thinking about putting in a structure in an area with fork traffic, don’t forget about adding guardrail to protect your workers and your equipment. You might not be as lucky as this customer was.

Storage Platform with Shelves and Security Cage

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Storage platforms are a great way to add extra storage space to your facility by enabling you to take advantage of the unused space above to maximize your available space without needing to expand your facility. The mezzanine probably itself isn’t the only thing you’ll need to think about when putting in a storage platform – you might want to put in some additional shelving or maybe some security cages while you’re at it. We recently received some photos back from a project where we were able to assist the customer with all of this.

The Storage Platform

The custom bi-parting slide gate allowed us to center the gate for forklift access.

The storage platform itself was an irregular shaped 30’x31’6″ overall, including a 19’x11′ bump in to allow for easy access of the fork trucks at the bottom of the platform. The customer requested an 11’5″ top of deck, which left us with 9’10” clearance height beneath our beam and c-section framing. They were planning on using the platform for mixed storage, with mostly light storage on shelves, but also the occasional pallet. We designed the platform to accommodate a 125 psf live load and used a durable and cost effective B-deck skinned with Resindek LD deck surface. This gave them a smooth solid surface to roll their pallets across that could easily handle the point loads of their shelves. We also included a custom bi-parting slide gate so we could position just where the customer wanted.

Shelves

We added multiple bays of shelving above and below the platform to increase the customer’s available storage space.

While planning out their storage area, the customer determined that they were going to need some new shelves to go above and below the platform and provided us with a layout of what they were hoping to do. We were able to provide them with 36 bays of various sizes of selves. We stuck with individual shelving units to afford them the flexibility to rearrange their layout if their needs change in the future. The clip style shelves helped minimize installation time, and the open shelves (lacking side and back walls) we provided helped keep the cost down while allowing them to place some larger items between two adjacent bays.

Security Cages

The welded wire panels were easily cut in the field to allow the staircase to pass through.

There were some materials the customer was going to store that needed to be secured. They wanted to create two secure zones: one 6’x15′ two wall cage on top of the storage platform , and a 11’x11′ three wall cage the ground level beneath the stairs. The Quick Fence welded wire mesh partition we provided worked great because it went together quickly and was easy for the installers to cut in the field to fit around the staircase.

security cage on top of storage platform

We caged off a section on top of the deck as well for additional secure storage space.

The customer was really happy with the quality of the storage platform, and with the ease in which it all went together. The next time you’re thinking of putting in a storage platform in your facility, let us provide you with an option to provide the shelves and cages as well.

Better Options For Lift Out Gates

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An old lift out gate in the wild.

I have a confession to make. I really don’t like lift out gates. Every time a customer asks me to put in a lift out gate on their platform, I get a sour taste in my mouth. Today I want to talk a little about why I dislike them so much, and what other options exist.

Why I Dislike Lift Out Gates

My beef with lift out gates largely boils down to one thing: safety. Lift out gate are surprisingly heavy. A 6′ wide lift out weldment weighs approximately 180 lbs. They are large weldments and can be removed with a forklift. Asking your employees to remove one by hand is asking them to stand over the edge of the abyss and lift up an anchor. It’s just not a safe option.

If you are not removing them by forklift, there are a few things you can do to minimize the risk. Your workers should tie off anytime they are manually removing or replacing the gate. They should grab a partner and lift the gate out in pairs. If at all possible, I’d also recommend keeping the individual gates under 4′ wide each. The best thing we can do though, is recommend a different gate solution.

What Might Work Better

There are typically two main reasons why customers ask for a lift out gate: price and access. Let’s look at these reasons and see if there’s something better we can recommend.

A bi-parting swing gate like this would be safer and more cost effective then two small lift out sections of railing.

Probably the most common reason customers ask for a lift out gate is price. They are hoping to save a buck and go with the least expensive option. A single lift out gate is the least expensive gate we can offer, but not by much. A 6′ bi-parting swing gate is only a couple hundred dollars more than a single 6′ lift out gate, and is actually less expensive than a pair of 3′ wide lift out gates. When looking at the overall cost of the platform, this is an extremely minor difference. If you have the space available, our standard pivoting mezzanine safety gate is only a couple hundred dollars more than the bi-parting swing gate and will always keep a line of safety railing between your workers and the edge. If you’re trying to keep costs down as much as possible, these are the two gates I’d be looking at.

Vertical mezzanine gate in raised position

A vertical lifting mezzanine gate like this can have up to a 16′ clear opening, and we can set them up to share columns if you were hoping to have access across multiple adjacent bays.

Most of the other times a customer is requesting lift out gates, it has something to do with the flexibility of the access. Perhaps they have something fairly large that they will need to put up on the deck. We can do a vertical lifting mezzanine gate that has a clear opening up to 16′ wide. Perhaps the customer wanted to be able to access all across the front of the platform as opposed to funneling everything through one or two gate openings. There is nothing stopping us from adding more gates all along the front.

Removable Railings

Sure we could do a removable rail using lift out gates, but these weldments are heavy and the price adds up quickly.

The only time we couldn’t solve the access issue with more gates or longer gates is if the object the customer is sending through the gate is longer than 16′. If this is a frequent occurrence and you’re not able to crane the material onto the deck, then a line of lift out gates would be the best solution we currently have to offer.

But what if this is one of those “blue moon” occurrences? In this case, I would recommend you forgo the lift out gates and save yourself a significant amount of money. Our typical 2-rail handrail is composed of hoops that are screwed into clips on uprights roughly every 8′. You can unscrew the hoops from the saddle clips. You can unbolt the uprights from the face of the mezzanine. We can design the railing to utilize smaller hoops so it’s easier to lift out individual sections. We can change our kick plate so it connects the uprights as opposed to the framing below the decking. This way it’s not too difficult to remove and reattach the railing should you need to without the added expense of all the weldment sections.

So next time you’re thinking of putting in a lift out gate, let’s discuss it and see if we might be able to come up with a better solution.

Using the Roof of a Modular Office for Storage

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The main purpose of the roof deck in a modular building is to form a membrane that holds the whole system together. Due to cost considerations, we typically design them with enough load capacity to support the lights and acoustical ceiling. That doesn’t always have to be the case though. We can also design it so that the roof of your building can be used for light storage. I recently got some photos back on a project where the customer wanted to do just that.

It was a pretty cluttered area, so hopefully the load bearing roof will give them some breathing room.

The customer wanted to put in an office for the maintenance manager and his team in order to cut down on the noise. The corner of the facility where they were situated was already pretty cluttered and they didn’t want to lose any more space back there, so they came to us in hopes of putting in a modular office with enough load capacity on the roof to use it for long-term light storage.

The sliding reception window allows the employees to easily communicate between offices.

The office was 20′ wide by 12′ deep. They wanted to break it into two separate 10’x12′ offices, but they wanted to make it easy to communicate between offices, so we put in an internal partition wall with a sliding reception window.

Modular wall panels with structural connectors and hangers to support the recessed beams.

There were a few things we needed to do in order to support a 100 PSF live load on the deck. We needed to put 10″ c-sections spanning from the front to the back of the building attached to hangers in the ceiling plenum. To support these c-sections, we used structural panel connectors between our wall panels as opposed to our typical tongue and groove or I-spline connections. While we could have gone with a 2-wall system due to the modular office’s location in the corner, we put a third wall along the back to support the c-sections instead of dropping columns to save the customer a little money as well. Due to the size of the recessed c-sections we went with 9′ tall panels so the customer could maintain a 8′ clearance height in the room.

A structural c-section was recessed into the ceiling plenum at every panel connection.

There were a few things we needed to do on top of the deck as well to finish it off. We covered the corrugated roof deck with OSB so that the customer would have a smooth walking surface above. We also fabricated and installed some surface mounted handrail and kick plate, as well as a spring loaded access gate to keep their workers from falling off the edge when moving around on the roof. You would also need to put in a staircase to access the system, but the customer told us they were going to take care of their own egress.

The surface mounted handrail will help keep workers safe when moving around on top of the office

The system went together nice and quick. Mechanical and electrical installation took a little less than a week, and the customer was really pleased with his new office. Now they just need to start moving things to the roof.

New Product: The Dock Defender Gate

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Spring is on its way. Sunshine. Warmer weather. A gentle breeze carrying the scent of blossoms. And along with it, a tendency to leave the loading dock doors open. But along with that fresh air also comes the risk of injury for your employees. It’s a good idea to start thinking about how we can keep our employees from falling through those open dock doors.

A couple years back we introduced our current version of the loading dock gate. Its compact, easy to use design protects your employees with a line of 2-rail handrail per OSHA. But what about areas that have heavy fork truck traffic? OSHA handrail is designed to hold back a person leaning on it, but it’s not going to offer much resistance to a rolling fork truck.

After releasing the latch, the dock defender gate folds in half and swings out of the way.

Allow me to introduce the newest gate in our product line: the dock defender gate. This heavy-duty gate system has been tested to stop a 13,500 lb fork truck moving at 6.5 mph. Plus, when you need access, it folds in half and swings out of the way. It has either a single 42″ high beam or a double beam set up for additional security. Standard opening widths are available in 6′, 8′, 9′, 10′, and 12′, but custom opening widths are available up to 16′. The dock defender gate ships out quickly in three pieces with all required hardware (including wedge anchors), making for a quick and easy installation.

The Dock Defender gate si also available in a two rail configuration.

So go ahead. Leave the doors open and enjoy the fresh air. Let’s just do it in a safe manner.

Using modular building panels to create a CMM enclosure

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Modular building panels can be used to provide a cleaner environment for your shop equipment.

CMM, or coordinate measuring machines, are a piece of equipment that uses a physical or laser probe to map out the geography of an object. They are very precise machines and need to be kept in a clean and often temperature controlled environment. I recently had a customer who found this out the hard way when the dust in the air due to production was messing with his machine, so he contacted us looking for an equipment enclosure.

Using modular building panels, we designed a 16′ deep by 20′ wide four wall enclosure. Due to the maximum height of the mast on the CMM, the customer needed a lot of available head room in the area, so we stacked panels up to 13′ using the A-wall 300 system, leaving us 12’6″ of available head room under the drop ceiling and recessed lights. The customer wanted a way to easily remove the CMM if he needed to in the future, but didn’t want to put in a large door. In order to facilitate this, we put in a 8′ wide by 9′ high removable panel assembly using a tubular steel “goal post” and some additional trim pieces, so if he did need to move the equipment he would just need to remove the extra trim pieces on the outside and pop put the panels. The customer wanted a lot of windows in the enclosure, and since the A-Wall modular building system’s windows are factory installed right into the panel as a single piece, we were able to put one in every 4′ panel (aside from the one with the HVAC system) that wasn’t facing their wall, including the two removable panels. We also outfitted the room with Flex-4 modular wiring inside the wall panels in order to save the customer money on the electrical installation.

The removable panels provide the customer with easy access to the equipment should they need it.

Upon contacting us, the customer was looking for a quick solution. After receiving the order we were able to send him approval drawings the next day. He was able to quickly turn around the approved drawings so we were able to ship it out to him in two weeks. The installation took a two man crew two days to complete. Twenty two days after we received the PO, the customer had this great looking equipment enclosure assisting with the smooth operation of the CMM.

The #900 Stair Tread with Riser

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We’ve got an announcement! New things are coming to the Floor-Mat Store! We are currently in the process of replacing our Uno-Tread 901 stair tread and riser combo, and bringing production of them back into the states! You will still be able to get the same beautiful, seamless design you have come to expect, but now with our new replacement tread #900 the colors will match with all of our other treads and landing tiles. That means you will be able to coordinate the color pallet across all of your staircases with the new colors, whether they are closed or open risers. Ultimately leaving you with a far more professional and cohesive look.

Our replacement #900 Tread will come in color series 1 and 3. These are made to order with a usual lead time of around four weeks.

For those of you who already have the Uno-Tread 901 series tread, you may want to consider ordering a few extras while we still have some on the shelves. Whatever we still have in stock is all that is left, and a preemptive order of a couple could save you having to redo your entire stair system should one of your steps start to show wear. For quoting on the #900 tread call in or email at (330)650-5561 X: 401 – sales@floormatstore.com

Working around an Obstruction with Modular Wall Panels

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Modular building with existing building column in the way

Looking to expand your modular office, but that I-beam is in the way of the wall panels?

One of the greatest advantages of using modular wall panels for your in-plant offices is their ability to easily change and grow as your needs change. Back in 2010, we provided a customer with a 20’x12’ modular in-plant office with an internal wall, splitting the space into two separate offices. A few years later they decided to rearrange the wall panels, taking out the dividing wall and creating one large office space. Earlier this year, the customer contacted us again looking to further expand upon the room, adding an additional 16’ to the system. This is an easy modification to make. Typically you would just disassemble the end 12’ wall, add four new 4’ modular wall panels to each of the 20’ long walls, and then close it back off with the existing 12’ end. But this extension offered a little twist that I thought we could talk about today. There was an I-beam right where the wall panels would go through.

Using angle and an internal steel stud to tie a modular wall panel to an I-beam

Conceptual sketch showing how the wall panels would be secured to the I-beam

If the wall panels fall between the flanges, the most cost effective method would be to terminate the wall on both sides of the webbing and secure it to the I-beam using some 1”x6” angle and an internal stud. This is not the cleanest method though, as the I-beam appears to cut through the wall and typically leaves a gap in the grid ceiling inside the I-beam.

conceptual model of using modular wall panels to box around an obstruction

Conceptual sketch showing how the wall panels can could be used to box out the I-beam

In this particular case the flange of the I-beam lined up with the outer sheet of gyp-board, creating an obstruction. Because of this we simply boxed around the I-beam with wall panels, closing it off. While this method requires a bit more in the way of materials, it allows for a very clean and uniform appearance.

modular wall panels boxing out an obstruction

The view from inside the finished modular office extension.

Drain Thru Rubber Matting for Snowy Entrances

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Winter is fast approaching, and for many of us that means frigid cold temperatures, snow, and dangerous ice.

All around me I see neighbors battening down hatches to prepare for a long and dark few months. However, preparations aside from plastic window coverings often go forgotten. With the holidays just around the corner, many of us have family on our minds, and it personally has me worried about slip prevention, especially for our youngest and oldest members.

Solutions to combat slipping can be time consuming as well as expensive; luckily, there are many simple preventive measures that can be taken to ease this worry. In my opinion, the simplest preventative measure is a drain thru mat for each of your entryways — and don’t forget your garage entrance after all of that snow shoveling!

Our Olympian series drain thru mats are 100% recycled material made from trim rubber used in tire manufacturing.

These mats are built to withstand the most extreme conditions. While other drain thru mats will crack and fall apart with the cold, these will last and last and last. Olympian mats show no visible cracks or fractures in temperatures as low as -45 degrees Fahrenheit! Then when the spring and summer months come, there is no need for them to be replaced, as our Olympian series shows no signs of deterioration at even 400 degrees Fahrenheit! Whether it’s hot or cold, this mat is built to take it!

We are already late in the year, and while most slip prevention projects require tedious installation and warmer temperature for adhesives to adhere, this mat is heavy enough to simply be laid out, while still being light enough to hang dry when needed.