British Pallets
The most popular British pallet is the 1200 x 1000mm, 9-block, with a full-perimeter base. That design is considered by many as the National UK pallet, though it is only one of many UK designs and does not even have a dedicated British Standard to formalise it. It is simply listed as one of five permitted modular sizes in ISO 6780 and EN 13382. (The British 1200 x 1000mm footprint originally came from the 1960s metric conversion of the dominant North American 48" x 40" 2-way stringer/bearer pallet). From the outset the UK mainly used the 9-block design with a full perimeter base, much as shown in the illustration, with the fastenings, thicknesses and wood species evolving over time.
The annual UK timber pallet production of around 55 million units now includes many overseas pallet designs such as the Europallet, CP range, French VMF and US GMA pallets. In fact we probably make and use more designs than most other European countries. In the worldwide push to reduce waste this may not be a merit, although, to balance this, there has been significant UK variety reduction in the last 10 years. The UK also has a healthy pallet recycling industry and put a lot of effort into the creation of the timber pallet recycling standard EN ISO 18613.
Terminology. Throughout this website we use the modern convention to define which side of a pallet is
length and which side is width. The rule is that irrespective of how long or short a bearer or stringerboard is, the side that the bearer or stringerboard runs is the LENGTH and length is always written first. In the pallet drawing here you are looking at the pallet WIDTH. So if the pallet here has 1000 mm deckboards and 1200 mm bearers it is described as a 1200 x 1000 mm pallet. This rule is well established commercially in Europe and North America and more recently European (CEN) and Worldwide (ISO) standards have also adopted this convention.
This PalletLink website contains over 100 Datasheets on pallet and packaging designs and issues raised by manufacturers and users over a period of time. The listing below makes no attempt to prioritise these Datasheets, it is simply a collection of designs and pallet topics recently raised by members. European designs, USA/Canadian designs, UK rental pool, NATO defence pallets and many other issues are covered over the 53 pages. Members needing information not obviously listed should try QUICK SEARCH and if unsuccessful, contact us. This hotline is a free service to members and we have several hundred more Datasheets and UK pallet specifications in draft form here ready to be e-mailed to enquirers or added to the site in due course. An index of European pallet standards and popular commercial designs is downloadable below. For overseas pallet standards and commercial pallet designs, if you know it, just enter the number into QUICK SEARCH or enter a keyword, or else peruse the PUBLISHED STANDARDS page.
For Downloading...
This is a members only document. Login if you are an existing member.
Click Here for information on joining PalletLink to gain access to all the benefits of a subscription.
12c Safe working loads (SWL) for CP Pallets (PDF 22kb)21a Pallet load testing to ISO 8611 (PDF 50kb)21f Every pallet has more than one level of safe working load (PDF 28kb)22c Four pallet specifications 1200 x 1000 perimeter base 9-block 4 way entry (PDF 21kb)22d The 'Spicer' Paper Industry Pallet (PDF 26kb)25d Optimum stacking patterns for goods on pallets (PDF 24kb)30a INDEX OF EUROPEAN PALLET standards and related documents (PDF 33kb)52b A guide to minimum pallet nail sizes (PDF 33kb)52d Nail assessment for pallet and box manufacture (PDF 32kb)77e Moisture meters for wood pallet and packaging manufacturers (PDF 56kb)79b Strength properties of 16 timber species for pallets and packaging (PDF 21kb)79e Wood quality grades for pallets and packaging - Summary of EN 12246 (PDF 26kb)93b Terminology for pallets and pallet boxes (PDF 27kb)94b Marking of pallets with their safe load is not recommended (PDF 18kb)