Nestable Pallets, 42 x 42 in Footprint

What rides on a 42 x 42 in pallet

• Paint and coatings
• Telecom and equipment cabinets
• A nestable best seller for one plastic supplier

42 x 42 in is the second most produced pallet size in the United States across all materials, and one plastic supplier lists a 42 x 42 in nestable among its best sellers. The size appears in products packed square, such as paint, and in trade that moves in the telecom and building sectors.

Few makers list per-trailer counts at this size, so the way to price the empty return is to ask for the per-stack and per-trailer figures and enter them in the calculator.

Shape and size

• Perimeter: 168.0 in (4,268 mm).
• Diagonal corner to corner: 59.4 in (1,509 mm), which is the room a pallet needs to turn in an aisle.
• Area: 1.138 square metres, 12.25 square feet.
• Aspect: the long side is 1.000 times the short side, so the deck is square.

In practice

A 42 in square sits in the awkward middle: too big to be a display pallet, too small for a drum block. It earns its place because the products that use it, paint cans and telecom cabinets for example, are packed square, and a square pallet wastes no corner. If your product is square, the size is a candidate; if not, it is probably not.

The practical hurdle is supply. Fewer makers print figures at 42 x 42 in than at the common size, so the buyer does more asking and the sheet carries more blanks. Treat any missing per-stack or per-trailer figure as a question for the maker rather than an invitation to copy a neighbouring size's number.

Paint is a good example of why a square works: cans are cylinders, a square deck takes a tight grid of them, and a square stack is steady in both directions. If your product is a grid of round or square units, count how many fit the deck in each direction before you choose.

Against its nearest footprints

The table orders the closest four by area. A 42 x 42 in pallet is 1,764 sq in; the nearest listed footprint differs by 85 sq in. Footprint is the choice the container makes for you, and a small difference in area is a large difference to a rack beam or a drum.

Counting the empty trailer

Few makers print per-stack or per-trailer figures for a 42 x 42 in nestable, so this site does not invent them. Ask for the two numbers, enter them in the calculator under another footprint, and the trailers follow.

As an illustration of the arithmetic only: if a maker printed 1,500 per trailer, 3,000 returning pallets would need 2 trailers, 5,000 would need 4, and 10,205 would need 7. Use the maker's real figure, not this one.

42 x 42 in against every other footprint

Questions for the maker

• Per-stack and per-trailer figures
• Static and dynamic ratings for the square base
• Whether the model is one the maker keeps in stock

From the dock

• Hollow legs collect meltwater and grit; a rinse before nesting keeps stacks from sticking together.
• A trailer loaded to the roof is limited by cube, not weight, which is why empties are priced by the trailer.

Words on this page

Stretch wrap

Elastic film wound around a loaded pallet to hold the load together.

Dynamic load

The weight a pallet holds while it is moved by a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor. It is lower than static because motion adds shock.

Recycled content

The share of a pallet moulded from reground plastic. Makers print it as a range, often by colour.

Racking load

The weight a pallet holds when it rests on two rack beams with an open gap between them. It is usually the lowest rating and only exists for pallets built for racks.