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Mesh decking and support bars

Beams hold a pallet's weight; decking and support bars hold everything smaller than the pallet from falling through the gap between beams. They are a separate layer, chosen for what sits on the beam rather than the beam's own rating.

Last updated 2026-08-23

The gap they are closing

On selective pallet racking, a standard pallet spans two beams with open space between them. That is fine when every load is a sound, intact pallet sitting square on the beams. It becomes a fall-through risk the moment a pallet is broken, a load is stacked loose or hand-stacked, or cartons and loose stock are stored directly on the beam level without a pallet at all.

Mesh decking is a welded steel mesh panel that sits across the beams and closes that gap along the whole bay. Pallet support bars do a narrower version of the same job: additional bars running between the front and back beam, under the pallet, reducing the span it has to bridge and giving a damaged or marginal pallet somewhere to sit rather than sag. Decking itself is not one product either — open wire mesh against a solid steel panel is its own choice, driven by whether the point is visibility and airflow or a fully closed surface.

Decking versus support bars

The two are not interchangeable, because they solve slightly different problems. Decking is about closing the gap so nothing smaller than the mesh opening can fall through, which matters most where people work or walk beneath a loaded bay, or where loose or damaged stock is a realistic possibility. Support bars are about carrying more of a pallet's own weight across a shorter span, which matters most where pallet condition is inconsistent or loads are heavy relative to the beam spacing.

Many warehouses run both in areas with foot traffic below, and neither in a pure block-stacked back area with no one working underneath. The choice tracks what is happening on the floor beneath the beam level, not a fixed rule for every bay in the building.

  • Mesh decking closes the gap between beams so items cannot fall through
  • Support bars reduce the span a pallet has to bridge
  • Neither substitutes for a sound pallet or a properly loaded beam

Where it matters most

Decking earns its keep fastest wherever people work, walk or drive beneath a loaded level — a picking aisle, a walkway that happens to run under racking, or a mezzanine undercroft used for anything other than dead storage. It is also common wherever carton flow or pick-face areas mix pallet levels with hand-picked stock, because that is exactly the mixed-load situation decking is designed for.

Deep-lane systems like drive-in racking rarely use the same beam-level decking, since pallets there sit on rails rather than spanning open beams, which is a reminder that the right product depends on the racking type as much as on what sits on top of it.

Decking and support bars are usually specified per bay or per aisle rather than uniformly across an entire warehouse, because the mix of pallet condition and stock type is rarely uniform either. A fast-moving pick face handling mixed cartons has a different profile to a bulk-storage aisle holding shrink-wrapped, single-SKU pallets, and it is common for one to be decked and the other not.

None of this changes what the beams themselves are rated to carry. Decking and support bars manage what happens on top of a beam level; the beam's own capacity, and whether the frame carrying it is sound, is answered separately, on the load sign for that bay and by the racking itself.

A supporting product, not a verdict

Fitting decking or support bars is a housekeeping and risk-reduction decision. It says nothing about whether the frame underneath is structurally sound, and it is not a substitute for regular inspection of the racking itself. Whoever carries out that inspection should be able to explain what they found, in the same way a racking inspection report documents any other finding.

Common questions

Is mesh decking required on all pallet racking?
No single rule requires it everywhere. It matters most where people work or move beneath a loaded level, or where loads are not always intact pallets. A back-of-house area with no one underneath and consistent, sound pallets may not need it at all.
Do pallet support bars increase what a bay can carry?
They reduce the span a pallet has to bridge between beams, which can help with damaged or marginal pallets, but they do not change what the beam or the frame behind it is rated to carry. That figure belongs on the bay's own load sign.
Can decking replace a damaged pallet?
No. Decking manages what happens if something falls, it does not fix the underlying problem of a damaged pallet or an overloaded level. A damaged pallet should still be taken out of use.

Sources

Part of our guide to rack protection and safety barriers.

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