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A fixed dock will serve you well over the life-time of the building and especially for the general day to day use for material handling besides the movement of collection and exhibition pieces. With a 4’ elevation change over 45 feet you can expect challenges with large and/or heavy pieces on good wheels because they are naturally going to want to move with gravity. A 48” dock is considered freight high. For a specialized handling operation like a museum you should consider building in “dock levelers” that will accommodate lower and higher equipment floor heights. Most of our truckload exhibition moves are done in high cube trailers with 40” or lower floor heights, and some of our flat-bed hauling uses equipment with floor heights as high as 52”. Good dock ramps will help with the scariest part of loading or unloading; the transition from vehicle to dock. Additionally, the ramp to the dock from ground level could create a problem for longer trailers equipped with “belly boxes”. They may not be able to back down without scraping. TJ Carney MidWest Fine Art Service and Transportation Co. LLC
-----Original Message-----
Thank you for your responses to my loading dock declined approach question. To further clarify, the approach would angle down so as to drop about 4 feet vertically over a horizontal distance of 45'. (The building's floor will be at the same elevation as the street, thus the need to bring the truck down)
A follow-up question: Would it be better to consider a level approach (no dock in other words) with a large, heavy duty scissors lift at the end onto which crates can be rolled, then lowered to ground level?
Bob Hellier
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