H-Town’s Pallet Racking Crew

Fifteen of them. In Fort Bend County we cover Sugar Land, Missouri City, Richmond and Fulshear. Up north in Montgomery County it is The Woodlands and Magnolia. East along the Ship Channel we cover Channelview, which is in Harris County, and Mont Belvieu over in Chambers County. In Brazoria County we work Alvin and Freeport, and around Clear Lake and Galveston Bay we cover Webster, League City, Friendswood, Texas City and the island itself in Galveston. If your building is near one of those towns and not on the list, ask anyway.

It depends on where the building sits, and that is the first thing we check. Texas has no statewide agency enforcing commercial building codes, so the rules come from the city if you are inside city limits and usually from the county fire marshal if you are not. Sugar Land, League City, Texas City, Galveston and the other incorporated towns each run their own building and fire review. The Woodlands is not a city, so there the county and the local fire authority are the offices that matter. Most of these jurisdictions adopt some edition of the International Fire Code, which treats storage over 12 feet high (6 feet for high-hazard goods) as high-piled storage and generally wants a permit once that area passes 500 square feet. When a permit is needed we supply stamped drawings, load calculations and the high-piled storage paperwork the reviewer asks for.

Yes. A lot of the inland Houston area, from Fort Bend out through Harris County, sits on Beaumont Formation clay. It swells when it gets wet and shrinks in a dry summer, and not evenly, so one end of a slab can rise while another drops. Rack shows that movement early: whole rows lean the same way, following the floor instead of a forklift hit. On a survey we take elevations down the full length of the rows instead of checking one upright, and we choose anchors knowing the base plates may see seasonal movement.

Corrosion and storms. In Texas City, Galveston, Freeport, League City and the rest of the Bay Area, salty, humid air attacks bare steel, anchor bolts and hardware much faster than it does inland, so we look closely at finishes, anchor material and base plates on anything we install or inspect there. Hurricane and tropical storm season also means doors get opened to wind and water, buildings get flooded, and rack has to be checked after a storm before it is loaded again. The Houston area is Seismic Design Category A, so it is wind, water and salt that drive the coastal spec, not earthquakes.

Both work, and the right answer depends on your timeline and budget. New rack costs more but comes with the maker’s warranty and published capacities. Used rack that passes an inspection against ANSI/RMI MH16.1 is fine for a permitted install, costs less and is often easier to get quickly. The Houston area has a big, busy warehouse market, so good used steel comes loose regularly as tenants move out. We can price both side by side for the same layout so you can compare.

We do not post a price per pallet position, because it would not be honest. The number moves with beam capacity, frame height, how many bays you need, new versus used steel, and how much engineering and permit work the building and the jurisdiction call for. A few things push it one way or the other: taller buildings cost more in steel per position but store more per square foot of floor; used rack lowers the material cost; and a slab nobody has tested may need coring before anchors can be specified. After we walk the building, you get a written quote.

We are a brand of Alliance Material Handling, Inc., a Maryland corporation founded in 1955 with more than 70 years in material handling. We do not keep a Houston office or a street address here, and we say that plainly. What we offer the towns around Houston is that experience applied to your building: layout, stamped engineering, permit support, installation, inspection and repair, relocation, used rack supply and buying your old rack. Every install is built to OSHA requirements and ANSI/RMI MH16.1.