Set the envelope, the loading and the racking, and watch the consequences. Clear height decides levels, levels decide pallets, and the office you add comes straight out of the warehouse. It is the fastest way to understand why two bays of the same square footage are not the same bay.
Its catalogue entry, dimensions and the basis for them appear here.
All of them are conventional planning figures, and all of them are arguable. They are stated here so you can argue with them rather than inherit them.
| Assumption | Value used | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Loaded pallet height | 48 inches | Sets how much vertical space each racking level consumes. |
| Beam and clearance per level | 6 inches | Added to every level; small changes compound over four levels. |
| Clearance above top of storage | 18 inches | Set by the sprinkler design, not by this page. Confirm it with the fire protection designer. |
| Pallet face width | 4 feet | Standard pallet presented face-out in a rack bay. |
| Rack configuration | Back-to-back double rows | Single-deep rows with an aisle between each pair. Drive-in and push-back racking behave differently. |
| Staging depth at the doors | 16 feet | Space to land and check a load without blocking the aisle. |
| Side clearance | 3 feet each side | Keeps racking off the wall for sprinkler and forklift clearance. |
| Structural bay spacing | About 30 feet | Where the columns land. Real grids vary widely by building and era. |
| Aisle width | Set by the handling equipment | A counterbalance truck needs about 12.5 ft to stack at right angles, a reach truck about 9 ft, a guided turret truck about 6 ft. The aisle is a consequence of the truck, not a free choice. |
| Racking depth | Set by the racking type | Back-to-back selective rows are about 7.5 ft deep and serve two faces; drive-in lanes are far deeper and serve one. |
| Dock height | 4 feet | Conventional trailer deck height. Varies with trailer type. |
Set your target area, then push the racking levels up until the pallet count matches what you need. If it never gets there, the bay is the wrong shape, not just the wrong size. Deeper reading: bay sizes.
Move the clear height slider one foot at a time and watch the level count. Most of the time nothing happens — then it jumps. That is why clear height is quoted so carefully. Deeper reading: clear height.
Office depth comes straight out of the working area, and it is the most expensive part of the bay to build. Watch the warehouse figure fall as you add it. Deeper reading: choosing a bay.
The buttons above load these. They are conventional market vocabulary, not a published standard.
| Class | Typical range | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Micro bay | Under 1,000 sq ft | The smallest demised industrial unit — a single overhead door, a washroom, and little or no office. Trades storage, e-commerce fulfilment, service vans, hobby and workshop uses. |
| Small bay | 1,000 – 2,499 sq ft | The workhorse of multi-tenant industrial. One or two doors, a small front office, a washroom, sometimes a mezzanine. The size most trades, distributors and light manufacturers start in. |
| Mid bay | 2,500 – 4,999 sq ft | Two or more structural bays combined. Enough width for a forklift aisle and racking, enough office for a small team, and usually a second door. |
| Large bay | 5,000 – 9,999 sq ft | The top of the multi-tenant range. Often a corner unit with extra glazing, a dock plus a grade door, three-phase power and a built-out office and lunchroom. |
| Flex block | 10,000 – 24,999 sq ft | Several bays taken together, or a small freestanding building. The point where a tenant starts to control its own yard, loading and signage. |
No, and it never will be. Every dimension comes from the sliders on this page. No public record publishes bay dimensions for any building in Canada, so there is nothing to model from — that is the whole reason this site exists.
No. Use them to understand the trade-offs and to arrive at a viewing knowing roughly what you are looking for. Structure, fire protection, exiting and every code requirement have to be designed by people qualified to do it.
Because levels come in whole pallet-plus-beam increments, and the fire protection design requires clearance above the top of storage. The model assumes a 48″ loaded pallet, 6″ per beam and 18″ of clearance above the top level. Change any of those and the answer changes — see sprinklers and fire protection.
The model lays out back-to-back double rack rows with a real aisle between each pair, plus staging depth in front of the doors and clearance at the side walls. Narrow-aisle equipment, drive-in racking or push-back systems all change the arithmetic substantially.
Send us the configuration and we search the full Alberta industrial record against it, including buildings that are not advertised anywhere.