Guard rails are an essential safety component of any warehouse or industrial facility. They enable the creation of intelligent traffic patterns, provide employees with safe walkways, and absorb accidental impacts from forklifts.

Several factors can affect pricing, such as materials and run length. Read on to learn more about how much warehouse safety guard rails cost and how you can reduce installation and freight fees.

How to Price Out Warehouse Guard Rails

When pricing out a guard rail run, it’s common to get a linear price estimate to obtain a rough budgetary number. However, the actual costs will change when you determine the final layout, and it’s common for the installation price to equal the material costs.

For example, if your material costs are $10,000, then the installation would be around $10,000, with the total cost being $20,000. It’s crucial to hire local installers, as this helps to reduce crew travel costs.

In addition to the product and labor, freight is another factor. You can assume shipping costs would be an additional 10-20% of the material costs. If you can find a guard rail in your local market, you can potentially reduce the freight factor by 5% to 10%.

To price out linear footage, you must first consider if you plan on opting for a single high or double high guard rail.

Double High Guard Rails

A double high guard rail post is 43” in height. The rails are bolted together, yet you can modify them into a lift-out rail with an optional lift-out adapter. Alternatively, you can bolt the lift-out adapters to the posts and slide the rails in without needing bolts.

Here are two examples of how to price a 300’ and 1,000’ linear foot double high guard rail run:

Example: Double High Guard Rail—300’

Figure out the number of posts and rails it would take to lay out a straight run of 300 feet, multiply by costs, then divide by 300. In this example, you would take 31 posts ($189 x 31) + 60 rails of 10’ ($228 x 60) = $19,539 / 300 = $65.13 per linear foot of double high guard rail.

Example: Double High Guard Rail—1,000’

If you did the same exercise for 1,000 feet, you would come up with a very close but slightly lower cost per linear foot number. So you want to estimate based on the closest number to your situation. The math would be as follows: ($189 x 101) + ($228 x 200) = $64,689 / 1,000 = $64.68 per linear foot of double high guard rail.

Actual Linear Foot Costs of Double High 300’

Now, if you take 300’ and break it into smaller sections, your costs will increase because you add more posts. For example, if you estimated $65.13 per linear foot (based on a straight run of 300’), but when in actuality, you broke it up into ten sections of 30’, your posts would increase to 40.

So the math would be as follows: ($189 x 40) + ($228 x 60) = $21,240 / 300 = $70.80 per linear foot of double high guard rail. The actual cost per linear foot increased by $5.67 per linear foot of double high guard rail.

Single High Linear Feet Costs

Single high guard rail posts are 18” in height. Much like the double-height guard rail, the rails are bolted together, and you can turn them into a lift-out rail with an optional adapter. You can also slide the rails in without bolting them by instead bolting the lift-out adapters to the posts.

Here are two examples of how to price a 300’ and 1,000’ linear foot single high guard rail run:

Single High Guard Rail—300’

The price per foot of a single high guard rail will be lower than double high because there are half the number of rails, and post costs will be less since there is less material. So for 300’ of single high, we figure out the number of posts and rails it would take to lay out a straight run, multiply by costs, then divide by 300.

In this example, you would take 31 posts ($121 x 31) + 30 rails of 10’ ($228 x 30) = $10,591 / 300 = $35.30 per linear foot of single high guard rail.

Single High Guard Rail—1,000’

If you did the same exercise for 1,000 feet, you would come up with a very close but slightly lower number. So you want to estimate based on your situation. The math would be as follows: ($121 x 101) + ($228 x 100) = $35,021 / 1,000 = $35.02 per linear foot of single high guard rail.

Actual Linear Foot Costs of Single High 300’

If you take 300’ and break it into smaller sections, your costs will increase because you add more posts. For example, if you estimated $35.30 per linear foot based on a straight run of 300’ but you broke it up into ten sections of 30’, your number of posts would increase to 40.

So here’s the math: ($121 x 40) + ($228 x 30) = $11,680 / 300 = $38.93 per linear foot of single high guard rail. The actual cost per linear foot increased by $3.63 per linear foot of a single high guard rail.

Which Type of Warehouse Safety Guard Rail Is Right for Your Facility?

At Handle It, our single and double heavy-duty guard rail systems can withstand impacts of up to 10,000 lbs at four mph. Protect your employees and assets while decreasing the chances of an industrial accident with our warehouse safety guard rails.

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