Before Modular Mezzanines, there was basically two types of Industrial Mezzanines:
- Custom Mezzanines
- Standard Mezzanines
Each one of these had their advantages and disadvantages. First off, custom architecting, engineering and installing a mezzanine to fit your specific building can get quite expensive. And sometimes you end up getting more or less capacity than you need because your focus was on the building; not your business.
Standard Mezzanines were much more practical because you just needed to make sure you had “enough” space to fit whichever standard unit you were buying.
CIP has launched a third type, the Modular Mezzanine. It offers much more design flexibillity than standard units, as you can configure into a variety of different shapes to better meet your space requirements. But because the modular systems are based on standard, interchangelable sections, you get all the benefits of standard units, with the added benefits of design flexibility and scalability.
To be considered a Modular Mezzanine, a standard units must use interchangable sections and options, that can be configured into different designs, be able to be added to in the future, and even relocated if necessary.
Design Flexibility
No one likes one size fits all. This isn’t what this is. This is sort of like working with those plastic brick blocks that snap together (darn copyrights). We’ve put together basic building blocks of mezzanine sections. The four corner posts are aligned to straddle the flooring in a way that allows additional units to connect on any side.
We’ve made it as simple as possible by engineering the solution in 10-foot, square interchangeable units. This also ensures the posts are never more than ten-feet apart. This provides a very stable structure and distributes weight efficiently to minimize the structural load being placed on the floor and foundation even when filled to rated capacity.
If a 200 sq. foot Modular Mezzanine is filled to capacity at 25,000 pounds, the floor slab analysis needs to show that it can support 12,500 pounds per square foot.
Below are some common Modular Mezzanine configurations:
Easy Installation
The units or sections are designed to be bolted together with nuts and bolts. Connection hardware is high strength (ASTM A 325-10) hardened structural steel bolts and fasteners. That means you don’t need a drill or a welder to connect sections together, and they can be installed in days rather than weeks.
Built Strong
The standard Modular Mezzanine sections are supported with industrial, heavy-duty steel columns and base plates. The column base plates are 10” x 10” x 5/8” thick steel factory punched for four 5/8” anchor bolts. All structural beams meet American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) of 50W specifications of a minimum yield strength of 50,000 pounds per square inch. The hollow structural section (HSS) square tubing meets ASTM 500 class H requirement of 46,000 lbs. per square inch.
In other words, they’re strong. Strong enough to support up 125 pounds per square foot, even though they drill directly into your floor and connect together with nuts and bolts. That’s pretty cool.
Completely Scalable for Growing Businesses
Now, this may just be the best part and why this approach makes so much sense. Remember that part in the beginning about figuring out what you need? Let’s say what you need right now is 200 sq. feet, but what you might need three years from now is 500 sq. feet. That’s okay, you don’t have to buy all 500 sq. feet right now. Simply get what you need now, now and get what you need later, later. As long as you start with a CIP Modular Mezzanine system, you know that down the road you can always buy more units and bolt them together.
And, if your needs change within your facility, you can even relocate and re-arrange all the units. Since all of the units are free standing and don’t connect to any of your walls, you have complete design flexibility.