Pallet racking in La Vergne, TN.

For addresses inside La Vergne city limits, the City of La Vergne's codes department reviews the building permit and the city fire marshal reviews high-piled combustible storage. La Vergne is an exempt jurisdiction that enforces its own codes, so the review is local rather than through the State Fire Marshal's Office. Parcels just outside city limits fall to Rutherford County's building codes office. We confirm the reviewing office from the parcel before drawings are issued.

Yes. Rubber tires are classified as a high-hazard commodity under IFC Chapter 32, which brings specific storage arrangements, height limits tied to the sprinkler design, and flue spacing into the rack design from day one. A rack that would be unremarkable holding packaged dry goods can need a different sprinkler design or layout once it holds tires. We classify the commodity and confirm the sprinkler system before laying out the rack.

Start from the sprinkler and the fleet, not the roof. The top beam level is set from the clearance required below the sprinkler deflectors, the upright height and frame design follow from the load and the seismic values for the site, and the aisle width comes from the trucks actually working the building. In Middle Tennessee seismic design matters more than in many Southern metros: sites are typically Seismic Design Category B or C depending on site class, so base plates, anchors and frame bracing are checked against site seismic values under ANSI/RMI MH16.1, and tall frames see that most.