When a Warehouse Mezzanine Makes Sense, and When It Doesn’t
When a warehouse runs out of room, most people start looking for more floor space. A bigger unit, an extra bay, a second building. What gets missed is how much height is sitting unused above the floor they already have.
A warehouse mezzanine puts a second level over part of your existing floor so you can use some of that height. It can work really well. It can also be the wrong call, and once it’s built you’re living with it. So it’s worth knowing when it fits before anyone starts pricing one.
What a Warehouse Mezzanine Is Actually Good For
Mezzanines work best for light work that people can do by hand or with a cart. Small parts on shelving, picking and packing, kitting, office space, a supervisor’s area that looks out over the floor, or slower stock you need to keep on hand.
Moving that work upstairs frees up the ground floor for the work that needs a forklift: receiving, pallet storage, staging and shipping. Each level can then be set up for what actually happens on it, and that’s a big part of why a mezzanine works when it’s used right.
Where It Starts to Work Against You
Anything stored on a mezzanine has to be brought up and taken back down. On the ground floor, a forklift or pallet jack does that in one trip. On a mezzanine, it goes by conveyor, or by forklift through a pallet gate. That’s extra handling every time, and in a busy operation it adds up fast.
So a mezzanine isn’t a good fit for heavy product, full pallets that move a lot, or anything your team would be hauling up and down all shift. If your busiest work ends up upstairs, you’ve made the operation slower.
Before going further, figure out what would actually go up there and how often it would need to come down.
The Height Question
You need enough clear height for two usable levels. People need proper headroom underneath and on top, and whatever’s stored or worked on below needs room too. Lights, sprinklers, ductwork and anything hanging from the roof all take some of that height away.
A building can look tall from the floor and still turn out to be tight once you account for all of that, so measure it properly first.
Sprinklers are a bigger part of this than people expect. A mezzanine wide enough to block the ceiling sprinklers usually needs its own sprinklers installed underneath. That’s extra design work and extra cost, and it should be part of the plan from day one.
What Sits Under It Matters Too
A mezzanine sits on columns, and each column puts a concentrated load on the floor slab. Whether your slab can handle that is something an engineer needs to check. Don’t assume it can.
The deck itself has to be designed for what’s going on it. The building code sets minimum design loads based on how a floor will be used, and storage is at the heavier end. A mezzanine designed for offices is built differently from one designed for loaded shelving. If there’s a chance the use will change down the road, that needs to be decided before the design is done.
The Code and Permit Side in Ontario
In Ontario, you need a building permit for a mezzanine.Most municipalities, like Mississauga, list mezzanines as needing one. Plan on engineered drawings as part of the application.
The Ontario Building Code also decides whether a mezzanine counts as another storey. That depends on how big it is compared with the space it’s in, and whether it’s open or enclosed. If it counts as a storey, more requirements kick in. Stairs and exits have their own rules too, and Ontario’s industrial safety regulation requires guardrails on mezzanines, built to the building code’s standard for guards.
Here are some things people rarely consider if they add extra floor space. Do you have enough washroom facilities? Do you have enough parking on your property for the number of people who will be working in that space? The municipality will be looking at these factors.
All of this takes time and costs money, so build it into the budget and the schedule from the start. It’s a lot easier than finding out halfway through.
Questions to Ask Before You Build Up
Before you get quotes, get answers to these:
What’s going on the upper level, and how often does it move?
How will people and product get up and down?
Is there enough clear height for both levels once lights, sprinklers and services are in?
Can the slab carry the column loads?
Is the work you’re moving upstairs going to stay the same for the next few years?
If the answers line up, a mezzanine can add a lot of usable space without moving. If they don’t, you want to know that before you’ve paid for one.
At IWS, we look at how the operation runs before we talk about adding a level. Sometimes a mezzanine is the right answer and sometimes it isn’t, and that’s the first thing we want to figure out.
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