Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Connecticut

Connecticut, by road

Start with the map. I-95 runs along the Sound and I-91 and I-84 cross in Hartford, which keeps most hauls short and tight. The Interstates I-95, I-91 and I-84 set the haul lengths, and the longer the haul, the more an empty stack's height matters.

The state reports 25,127 warehousing jobs, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics withholds county detail here, so there is no county split. It shares a land border with New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Warehousing in numbers

Connecticut reports no refrigerated warehouse capacity separately in the USDA table we used, so the cold question depends on the individual customer.

Reading the numbers

• Warehousing and storage employs 25,127 people in Connecticut, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Food manufacturing employs 9,671 people in Connecticut, 0.38 for every warehousing job.
• Connecticut holds 1.32 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 76, spread over 193 establishments averaging 130 jobs each.
• New York has 55,371 warehousing jobs, 2.20 times the 25,127 in Connecticut.
• Massachusetts has 20,695 warehousing jobs, 0.82 times the 25,127 in Connecticut.
• Rhode Island has 5,152 warehousing jobs, 0.21 times the 25,127 in Connecticut.

Who ships pallets here

In Connecticut, warehousing and storage employs 25,127. Racks decide the order of questions: a pallet that sits on beams needs a racking load that matches the span, and a floor-stacked pallet needs a static load that matches the bottom of the stack. It tends to lean on rackable where the pallet lives on beams, stackable for block stacking, nestable for the empties that go back, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the racking load, and the beam span it was rated on.

Warehousing and storage is the trade where Connecticut is most concentrated, at 1.2 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 193 warehouse establishments in Connecticut sent back 1,200 empty pallets in a week, that would be 231,600 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Words on this page

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Cold chain

The linked storage and transport steps that keep refrigerated or frozen goods at temperature.

Gross cubic feet

The total volume of a refrigerated warehouse. Usable space is smaller once aisles and equipment are subtracted.

Metropolitan area

A group of counties around an urban core, as the Census Bureau delineates it. Metro pages here follow those lines.

Commodity class

A fire-protection category for stored goods and their pallets, used to design sprinkler systems.

2-way entry

A pallet that can be lifted from only two opposite sides.

Drayage

The short haul of a container between a port or rail ramp and a warehouse.

Closed deck

A solid deck that keeps small items and torn bags from falling through and wipes clean on top.

Stretch wrap

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