Building Materials Yard Cantilever Rack: OrePac Building Products, Boise, ID

OrePac Building Products distributes doors, millwork, mouldings and related building materials to dealers and builders across the West, and its Boise, Idaho branch handles a steady flow of long, bundled material. In August 2026 the branch’s continuous-improvement and safety lead contacted Material Handling USA through the mh-usa.com contact form asking for a quote on cantilever racking for storing building materials. Material Handling USA’s Director of Sales, Chris Rodgers, worked the request directly and quoted brand-new rack; the project closed the same month.

The requirement was specific and unusually well defined for an inbound request: tall single-sided uprights, bolt-on arms rather than drop-in arms, brace sets sized to the upright spacing, and anchoring hardware suited to an asphalt surface. OrePac ordered material only — its own crews handled installation. That is a common and completely workable path when a distributor has capable in-house staff, and it shifts the design work forward: every decision about arm length, bracing and anchors has to be right on the quote, because nobody from the vendor is on site to adjust it later.

If you are starting from the same place, our cantilever rack systems overview walks through the component set referenced throughout this case study.

Three numbers drive a cantilever quote: arm length, arm spacing up the column, and upright spacing along the row. On this project the arm length conversation happened in the first two emails — Material Handling USA offered 3-ft, 4-ft and 5-ft arms, and OrePac selected 4-ft arms for its building-material bundles.

Arm length should be driven by the material, not by a wish for more depth. The usable depth of an arm is the arm length minus whatever clearance the load needs at the upright, and capacity falls as arm length grows because the load sits farther from the column. A 4-ft arm is a common sweet spot for building products: deep enough that a banded bundle is fully supported front to back, short enough that the rated capacity stays high and the aisle does not have to grow.

Upright spacing along the row has to respect the deflection of the material, not just the weight. Flexible profiles — vinyl trim, thin moulding, light siding — will sag between widely spaced arms even when the rack is nowhere near its rated load. Closer upright spacing, or a deck across the arms, solves sag. OrePac’s row was designed around 6-ft upright spacing with matching 6-ft brace sets between uprights.

OrePac specifically asked for arms that bolt on rather than slide in. Both styles are legitimate, and the choice is about how often you expect to change the rack.

Bolt-on arms are fastened through the column. The connection is rigid, there is no wedge to work loose under repeated impact, and the arm cannot be lifted out accidentally by a fork. Re-positioning means unbolting, which is deliberate work — an advantage in a branch where levels should not drift.

Drop-in (slide-in) arms engage a slot on the column and are far faster to move. They suit operations whose product mix changes seasonally, or a yard still learning what its level heights should be.

For a distribution branch storing a stable family of building materials, the rigidity and tamper-resistance of bolt-on arms is usually the better long-term choice, which is what OrePac specified.

OrePac’s hardware list included asphalt anchor bolts, which tells you most of what you need to know about the setting: this rack was going onto an asphalt surface rather than an interior concrete slab. That changes three things.

Anchoring. Concrete anchors develop their capacity in a slab with known thickness and strength. Asphalt is a flexible pavement; it moves with temperature and creeps under sustained load. Asphalt anchors are designed for that substrate, and the design has to assume less restraint than a concrete slab offers. Base plates generally want to be larger, and bearing pressure lower, so the upright does not slowly press into a hot surface.

Water and ice. Long material stored outdoors should shed water, not hold it. Arms are normally installed with a slight upward incline toward the column, which resists roll-off and, outdoors, keeps a bundle from sitting in a pool. Grade and drainage under the row matter for the same reason.

Finish and inspection. Outdoor rack sees weather, road salt and UV. Painted structural steel is serviceable when it is inspected; galvanized components last longer in harsh exposure. Either way, an outdoor row needs a real inspection routine, because corrosion and pavement settlement are slow failures that no one notices until they are advanced.