Impact protection / foam profiles

Impact protection: preventing damage costs less than repairing it

Impact protection shields walls, columns, doors, pipework, racking and machines from the damage that forklifts, pallet trucks and vans inevitably cause. In a working warehouse that is not a question of whether, but of how often.

We supply and install impact protection and foam profiles for warehouses, production halls, car parks, loading bays, hospitals and logistics sites.

What you protect, and against what

The question that determines the type is how much energy has to be absorbed. A pallet truck clipping a door frame is something other than a fully loaded forklift hitting a column.

• Columns and wall corners: the most frequently hit. A damaged load-bearing column is also a structural problem, not a cosmetic one.
• Door openings and industrial doors: the frames take the worst of it, and a deformed door blocks the route.
• Racking: a struck upright can bring down a complete run of racking. Protection here is not a luxury.
• Pipework, sprinklers and electrical cabinets: damage here brings the whole site to a standstill.
• Pedestrian zones: here it is not about materials but about people. A heavy barrier between the walkway and the forklift route is the single most effective measure there is.

The versions

Steel barriers and guardrails

Heavy, anchored into the floor, designed to stop a vehicle. Usually powder-coated yellow for visibility. This is what you choose where the energy genuinely has to be absorbed.

Plastic and polymer protection

Flexible elements that absorb the impact by deforming and then springing back. They do not pass the energy on to the floor fixings, which means the floor stays intact; with steel protection it is often the floor that cracks rather than the barrier. They do not rust and never need repainting.

Foam profiles and bump strips

Self-adhesive foam or rubber profiles on corners, frames and edges. They will not stop a vehicle, but they do prevent scratches, dents and injuries in light impacts. Inexpensive and quick to fit, and the logical first layer.

Column protectors

Sleeves that close around a column, in plastic or steel.

Impact posts

Individual anchored posts to screen off a single point, such as an electrical cabinet or a corner.

Visibility counts as much as strength

Protection that does not stand out gets hit. Yellow and black is the convention for a reason: it is read immediately as a hazard or an obstacle. In dark areas and in car parks, a version with reflective banding pays off.

Think about floor lining as well. A barrier works better alongside clear marking that shows where forklifts drive and where pedestrians walk. We supply that floor marking within the same order.

Installation and anchoring

The anchoring is decisive. A heavy steel barrier in a thin or poor floor will pull the floor up with it at the first real impact, and then you have two problems. That is why we look at the floor build-up before we settle on a type, and in case of doubt we advise a flexible version that passes less energy into the floor.

Leave room between the protection and what it protects. A barrier hard up against a column simply passes the impact straight on; a few tens of centimetres of clearance make the difference.

What determines the price?

Impact protection has no fixed price per metre. The cost follows from the type, whether foam profile, plastic or steel, the weight and the energy to be absorbed, the length and the number of elements, the anchoring and the condition of the floor, the finish and any reflective banding, the accompanying floor marking, and whether the work is carried out in a running site or outside working hours.

Send us a plan of the hall with the traffic routes, and you will get a proposal per zone with a quotation in which those items are set out separately.

Putting your site to us

Send us a plan or a few photos and tell us where things go wrong today. We will walk the traffic routes and propose protection that matches the traffic that actually runs there.