Pictured above: the deck edge of a mezzanine from our project archive (V8-6), with its black railing, hazard-striped edge and a staircase at the right, and a forklift working on the warehouse floor beyond. There is no pallet gate in this view. It shows the other half of the question this article is about: the deck is one thing, and the way stock gets onto it is another.

Most mezzanine enquiries begin with floor area and load. How the stock gets up there usually comes later, often after the deck is already designed, and by then the answer is expensive. A staircase takes people up. It does not take a pallet up, and it does not take a trolley load of cartons up without somebody carrying them by hand.

So before anyone asks what the mezzanine costs, it is worth settling a plainer question: what has to go up, how often, and what will carry it? There are four ways stock normally gets onto a mezzanine in Singapore, and each one sets something different in the design. This article goes through them in the order of how much they ask of the structure.

1. Carry it up the stairs

For cartons, small parts, files and anything one person can safely handle, the staircase is the access. It is also the cheapest answer, because every mezzanine we build has one anyway. Our published range of S$280 to S$520 per square metre already includes the stair, handrail, gate and BCA submission coordination, so this option adds nothing on top.

The honest test is volume. Carrying a few cartons up at the start of a shift is one thing. Restocking a pick level every day, all day, by hand, up a steel stair, is a labour cost and an injury risk that does not show on the quotation. If the answer to "how many trips a day?" is a number you would rather not say out loud, the stair is not the access you actually need.

The stair is also the escape route. On our mezzanine page the egress staircase is sized to the occupant load: a 400 m² mezzanine for 20 people may need only one stair, while the same area for 80 people needs two at opposite ends. So where the stair goes is already a fixed point in the layout before you start thinking about stock.

2. A pallet gate, fed by a forklift from the ground

If pallets have to go up, the usual answer is a pallet gate: an opening in the railing along the deck edge. The forklift stays on the warehouse floor and raises the pallet to deck level, and the pallet is landed on the deck and moved away by hand pallet truck. On our mezzanine page the gates for loading come as swing, sliding or up-and-over, and the gate is part of the price that is already published.

Three things have to be true for this to work, and all three are checked before the steel is cut:

• The truck can reach the deck. Take our published minimum clear height of 4.5 m. The deck adds about 300 mm and leaves about 2.1 m of headroom above and below, so on that minimum the deck surface sits roughly 2.4 m above the slab. That is simple arithmetic from our own figures, and the real number comes from your unit. What matters is that the truck's maximum lift height and the load chart for the pallet you are lifting, not the headline lift figure, can put a full pallet at that level. The load chart is the page that tells you, and it is covered in our note on checking a new truck against your racking. If the truck is later replaced, the gate is one of the things that has to be re-checked.
• The deck is rated for what lands on it. Pallet storage on a deck is 500 kg/m² as the minimum. A standard pallet-storage mezzanine is designed for hand pallet trolley loads only, which is exactly what a pallet gate asks of it: the forklift stays off, the trolley goes on.
• There is clear floor on both sides of the gate. A pallet needs somewhere to be landed and somewhere to be moved to. A gate opening onto racking, a column or a stair landing is a gate that cannot be used. This is a layout question, and it is why gate positions are settled with the column grid, not after.

One more point belongs in writing, not in anyone's memory: who is allowed at the gate, and when it is open. The gate sits in the guard around an open edge, and the work at it should follow a rule agreed before the mezzanine is handed over. We would rather you ask us about it at design stage than invent it on the day the first pallet goes up.

3. A goods lift, or a chute and conveyor

When the flow of pallets or cartons is steady, or the load is heavier than a trolley should be pushed around a deck, a lift or a conveyor starts to make sense. Our page describes production and assembly mezzanines as compatible with conveyor handoffs to ground level via chute or lift.

We do not publish a price for a lift, and this article is not going to guess one. What our page does say, in the context of office mezzanines, is that where a lift is required we coordinate with a separate lift contractor and include the structural openings and pit in our scope. Treat that as the shape of any lift on a mezzanine: a second trade, a structural opening in the deck and sometimes a pit in the slab. It is a different project from adding a gate, and it belongs in the first survey conversation, not the third.

4. Drive the forklift onto the deck

The fourth way is to put the forklift itself on the mezzanine. Our page lists forklift-accessible mezzanines for pallet trucks, walk-behind stackers or full counterbalance forklifts on smaller mezzanines. This is a different structure, not a stronger version of the same one: a rating of 1,000 kg/m² or more, a heavier deck in chequer-plate or diamond-plate steel, denser joists, stricter slab connections and sometimes reinforced columns.

That is why it is the option to be most careful with. It can be the right answer when the deck is itself a working warehouse level, but it should be chosen because the operation needs it, not because it looks like the most flexible choice on paper. Raising the rating of a finished deck is an engineering job, not an adjustment, which is why the load rating is decided at the start. Our published range moves with load rating, and we do not publish a separate figure for a drive-on deck.

Match the access to the flow, not to the deck

A short way to choose, using what the deck is for:

• Pick level for cartons (the 250 to 350 kg/m² band on our page): stairs usually, with a gate only if restocking is by pallet.
• Pallet storage above a pick face (500 kg/m² minimum): a pallet gate fed from the floor is the common match, with a trolley working on the deck.
• Light assembly or packing level: people and small loads on the stair, with a conveyor or lift if product moves between levels all day.
• A deck that is a working warehouse level: only then is a drive-on structure worth its extra weight, and it has to be engineered as one from day one.

If the mezzanine is going to hold racking uprights as its supports, the access question changes the column grid (what else moves the cost is in the cost-per-square-metre article). A gate opening, a lift well and a stair landing all take floor, and every one of them has to line up with the columns underneath.

Six questions to answer before the deck is designed

1. What goes up: cartons, pallets, or something heavier? Write down the heaviest single load.
2. How many times a day does something go up? Count it from a real week, not a guess.
3. Which truck will do the lifting, and what does its load chart say at deck height?
4. Where is clear floor for the gate, on the ground and on the deck?
5. Will anyone need to drive a truck onto the deck? If the answer is "maybe one day", say so, because it changes the structure.
6. Does this change the stair or the exit route? Egress is sized to occupants, so a lift well or gate can move it.

What we need from you

Send us the unit's clear height under the lowest obstruction, what you plan to store on the mezzanine, the truck you work with and a rough count of how often stock goes up. We will tell you which of the four access routes the deck should be designed around, and whether the access you have in mind is one the deck can actually carry. The full scope is on our mezzanine page, and a site survey is where the heights, slab and gate position are checked on your own floor.

If you want us to look at how stock gets onto a mezzanine you are planning, message us on WhatsApp with the unit's location, the clear height, the truck you use and what the mezzanine is for.

Related reading: rack-supported or freestanding mezzanine · mezzanine cost per square metre · checking a new truck against your racking