Mezzanine edge protection
A mezzanine is a fixed platform, and the edge of one is a fall risk regardless of what it is built on top of. Handrail, kick rail and pallet gates are the three products that manage that edge, and the standard that governs them is a different one from the racking standard.
Last updated 2026-08-23
Three products, one job
Handrail runs along an open edge at working height and stops a person walking or falling off it. Kick rail (sometimes called a toe board) sits low along the same edge and stops something on the floor — a pallet, a tool, loose stock — being pushed or kicked over the side onto whoever or whatever is below. The two are usually specified together, because they cover different heights of the same edge.
A pallet gate is the opening in that edge where goods are lifted or lowered by forklift, usually at the top of a goods lift or a load point on a storage mezzanine. It has to be closed while the edge is otherwise open for the lift cycle, which is what makes it a different product from ordinary fixed rail.
Warehouses add a mezzanine for the same reason they look at any other expansion option: more storage or staging area without a bigger building footprint. A deck used as a staging area rather than pure storage tends to see more foot traffic near the edge, which raises the stakes on the gate discipline below.
Why a different standard applies here
A mezzanine floor, its edge, its stairways and its access ladders are governed by AS 1657 — Fixed platforms, walkways, stairways and ladders — Design, construction and installation, not by the standard that governs pallet racking. AS 4084 covers the steel storage racking system: the uprights, beams and frames that carry a pallet load. A mezzanine deck, even one built on a racking-style structure, is a fixed platform that people stand and walk on, and that is what brings AS 1657 into it.
That distinction matters in practice because it is easy to assume one standard covers a mezzanine end to end. It does not. The structure supporting the platform may be assessed against racking-related guidance where it is genuinely a racking system; the platform, its edges and the way people access it sit under AS 1657.
What decides the detail
How high the handrail sits, how the kick rail is fixed, and how a pallet gate interlocks with the lift cycle are all matters of engineering design and installation against AS 1657, not something this page states figures for. Those details are set by whoever designs and installs the mezzanine, sized to the actual platform, and they are not the kind of number that belongs in general reading — they belong in the design drawings for that specific structure.
What is worth knowing as a warehouse operator is that a pallet gate left open, propped open, or bypassed for convenience defeats the entire point of the edge protection around it. Gate discipline during loading and unloading is an operating procedure, not a one-off installation detail.
- Handrail stops a person going over the edge
- Kick rail stops loose items being pushed or kicked over the edge
- A pallet gate is the openable section for forklift load points, and only that section
Where this sits next to racking
A mezzanine deck and the racking beneath a standard pallet bay are different structures answering to different standards, even when they share a supplier or a single design drawing. Whether either one is sound as built is a matter for a competent person to assess, and a racking inspection focused on pallet racking is not automatically the same scope of check as a mezzanine platform assessment. If a warehouse has both, it is worth confirming explicitly which structure any given inspection actually covers.
The same care applies at installation. Fitting and fixing handrail, kick rail and pallet gates correctly is part of the broader installation scope for a mezzanine project, not an afterthought bolted on once the deck itself is finished.
Common questions
- Does AS 4084 cover mezzanine edge protection?
- No. AS 4084 covers steel storage racking. A mezzanine floor, its edges, stairways and ladders are governed by a different standard, AS 1657 — Fixed platforms, walkways, stairways and ladders — Design, construction and installation.
- What is a pallet gate for?
- It is the openable section of a mezzanine edge at a forklift load point, allowing goods to be lifted or lowered while the rest of the edge stays protected by fixed handrail and kick rail.
- Is kick rail the same thing as handrail?
- No. Handrail sits at working height and stops a person going over the edge. Kick rail sits low along the same edge and stops loose items on the floor being pushed or kicked over. Mezzanines typically need both.
Sources
- WorkSafe Victoria — Pallet racking operation and maintenance — Confirms the scope of racking-specific guidance, useful for showing what it does not cover — fixed platforms and their edges. Retrieved 2026-08-17.
Part of our guide to protecting racking from impact.