Warehouse loading bays
Dock levellers
A dock leveller bridges the height difference between the dock and the trailer floor and carries every forklift that crosses it. The question is never whether you need one, it is which lip suits the vehicles you actually receive, because that single choice decides how much of your traffic the bay can serve without anybody repositioning anything.
What a dock leveller actually does
A trailer floor is rarely level with a dock, and it moves while it is being loaded: as pallets come off, the suspension rises. A dock leveller is the platform that absorbs both, resting its lip on the trailer bed so that the forklift crosses a continuous surface, and following the trailer as it lifts rather than fighting it.
That is why the load rating and the reach matter more than the headline dimensions. The unit has to carry the loaded truck, not the pallet, and it has to keep contact with a trailer floor that is not where it was five minutes ago. A leveller that is undersized for either does not fail dramatically; it just gets slower, and the drivers find a way around it.
The lip is the decision
Everything else about a leveller follows from which lip it has, because the lip is what determines the range of vehicles the bay can take.
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Telescopic lip
The lip extends hydraulically out to the trailer, so it can be placed precisely and can reach further into the vehicle. That makes it the choice for deep docks and for a mixed fleet, because the reach is adjustable rather than fixed. More moving parts, and a higher price.
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Swing lip
The lip hinges out from the platform. Fewer moving parts, simpler to maintain and cheaper to buy, with a shorter and fixed reach. It is the right answer where the vehicles are consistent and the dock geometry does not vary.
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Combi leveller
Built for sites that take vans and lorries at the same bay, combining an extending section with a fixed one so that both floor heights are served. A larger investment and a more involved installation, and the only clean answer when the fleet genuinely splits in two.
Which of the three suits a site is a question about the vehicles, not about the building. Rejuva establishes the mix, the frequency and the floor heights at the survey and specifies from there.
When a full leveller is more than the bay needs
A pit-mounted leveller means civils, and there are two lighter products that bridge the same gap for a fraction of it. They are not substitutes in every case, and knowing which case you are in saves the larger spend.
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Dock plates and dock boards
A portable plate that is lifted into position across the gap between the dock and the trailer, in aluminium or steel, with lips that locate against the vehicle floor. There is nothing to install and nothing to maintain, and the trade-off is that somebody handles it for every load and the capacity is far lower than a fixed unit.
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Edge of dock levellers
A unit that mounts to the face of the dock rather than sitting in a pit, so no slab is cut and the installation is a fraction of the work. It bridges a smaller height difference than a pit leveller and reaches less far into the vehicle, which makes it the answer where the vehicles are consistent and the difference is modest.
Both are worth pricing against a pit leveller before committing to the civils, particularly in a leased building where cutting the slab may not be allowed at all. What rules them out is a wide spread of trailer heights or a heavy, constant duty, which is exactly what a pit unit is for.
Sizing it for the traffic rather than the doorway
The width of a leveller tends to be assumed from the width of the opening, and the length from whatever the previous unit was. Neither is the right starting point. The width follows the load and how it is handled, since a forklift turning on the platform needs more than one driving straight across it, and the length follows the gradient you are willing to put a loaded truck on.
Gradient is the part that is most often got wrong, and it is the part that shows up later as damaged loads, worn tyres and slower crossings. A short platform serving a big height difference is a steep platform, and the truck notices before anybody else does.
The capacity is specified for the heaviest loaded vehicle that will cross, with the dynamic load rather than the static one in mind, because a truck braking on the platform loads it differently from a truck standing on it.
Where a leveller is usually getting it wrong
Three symptoms that point at the leveller rather than at the people working around it.
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Drivers reposition before every load
If a trailer has to be shunted to line up with the lip, the reach is wrong for that vehicle. It costs a minute or two each time, which is invisible per load and considerable per year.
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The bay only works for some vehicles
A fleet that has picked up vans, or lost its rigids, is a fleet the bay was not specified for. The usual workaround is to send those vehicles to one particular bay, which quietly halves the site's capacity.
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The platform is visibly steep
A gradient a forklift has to slow down for is a gradient that is wearing the truck and shaking the load. It is a sizing problem, not a driving one, and no amount of care at the wheel fixes it.
Standards, inspection and what keeps one working
EN 1398 is the European standard for dock levellers, spelled dock levelers in American English and sold under both spellings across Europe, and it sets the safety requirements for their design and construction alongside the CE marking the unit carries. That covers the leveller as supplied; what it does not cover is the leveller five years into service, which is a maintenance question.
A leveller in daily use is a hydraulic machine taking impact loads several hundred times a week, so it needs periodic inspection in the same way any other item of plant does: the hydraulics, the lip mechanism, the safety supports and the wear at the hinge. Most sites that have a leveller fail have one that was never on a schedule.
Rejuva specifies from several manufacturers rather than one, which matters here more than on most products, because the right lip for a given vehicle mix is not always made by the same maker as the right capacity.
Frequently asked questions
Telescopic or swing lip, if we only have one bay?
Telescopic, in most cases, because a single bay has to serve everything that arrives and the adjustable reach is what makes that possible. The swing lip is the better value when the vehicles are consistent, and a site with one bay rarely has that luxury.
Can a leveller be replaced without rebuilding the pit?
Often, if the new unit matches the existing pit dimensions, and that is the first thing to check because it is the difference between a day's work and a much larger job. Where the pit is wrong, a surface mounted or edge of dock unit can sometimes avoid the civils altogether, at the cost of some reach.
What capacity do we need?
It follows the heaviest loaded truck that will cross, including its load, and it is specified against dynamic loading rather than a standing weight. Tell us what your heaviest handling equipment is and what it carries, and that sets the rating.
How often should a dock leveller be inspected?
On a schedule set by how hard it works, in the same way as any other plant on the site. A bay turning sixty vehicles a day is not on the same interval as one turning five. What matters more than the number is that there is a schedule at all, since the failures that take a bay out of service are almost always ones that were visible first.
Do you handle the pit and the civils as well?
Yes. Rejuva delivers the installation as one project, including the preparation the unit needs, which is what keeps the leveller, the door and the shelter from being specified against each other. Where the slab needs work, that is established at the survey and not on the day.
The four parts of a loading bay
These are chosen together rather than one at a time, because each one constrains the next: the leveller sets what the bay can serve, the shelter has to seal around the vehicle it was sized for, and the door has to live with the pit underneath it.
Have a project in mind?
Describe what needs to happen in the building and we will come back with a proposed approach, the specialist who would carry it out and a budget you can work with.