Second story doorway opening with snap chains

We are often contacted by customers looking for a pallet gate to use in an atypical application.  Most commonly they have a second story that has been closed off with walls and a set of double doors through which they load pallets from below.  We recently received some photos back from a happy customer out in British Columbia for whom we provided a solution for just such a case.

The customer wanted something more substantial than the snap chains across the door frame to guard the opening when the doors were open.  In order to assist them with this, we provided them with a customized self closing pallet gate.

The required dimensions to properly fit a pallet gate on a door framed opening

The gates on the self closing pallet gate need to freely swing inward and clear the existing doors.  The clear opening with on their doorway was 6’.  In order to save the customer some money we used our standard hoops for a 5’ clear opening width gate.  The overall width is approximately 5’6”, leaving about a 3” gap on either side when centered on their doorway.  If necessary, we could have gone with a custom width, but remember, the largest self closing pallet gate we can provide has a 6’ clear opening (approximately 6’6” overall) width.

Wall mounted self closing pallet gate being used to guard a second story doorway.

As the gate wasn’t being mounted in the usual fashion to industrial handrail to the sides, we provided special angle brackets and longer columns to fix the gate to the wall above and below the door frame.  If the floor extended beyond the doorway, we could have gone with the angle bracket above and the typical floor mount brackets to mount it to the deck below.

Inside view of the second story doorway opening being protected by the self closing pallet gate

With this gate in place, when the customer opens their doors, the opening is still protected with industrial use handrail.  Their fork truck driver just needs to push the pallet against the bumpered gates which will open as they load the pallet into position on the second story.  When the customer pulls the pallet away from the landing area, the spring loaded hinges will automatically close the gate, once again protecting the door opening until the customer closes their doors.