Thirty years of building ramps has taught us one thing about custom orders: the buyer almost never sends too much information. They send too little, we guess at the missing number, and the guess is wrong. Then a second production run, a second sea freight bill, and six weeks nobody planned for. This is the list of what to actually put in the email — and the mistakes we see most often when somebody doesn’t.
The Six Numbers That Decide the Design
Before any drawing is made, six measurements determine whether your custom ramp is a one-week configuration change or an entirely new structure. Get these wrong and nothing downstream can be fixed with a clever detail.
| # | Data point | Typical range | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bed height of the vehicle you load from | 1,120–1,270 mm (44–50 in) | Total ramp length, slope angle |
| 2 | Heaviest forklift: unladen weight + battery | 3.5–7.0 t (7,700–15,400 lb) | Deck plate thickness, main beam section |
| 3 | Heaviest load lifted | 1.0–3.0 t (2,200–6,600 lb) | Capacity rating and safety margin |
| 4 | Ramp width required | 1,800–2,600 mm (5’11″–8’6″) | Single beam vs twin beam, transport cost |
| 5 | Available approach length | 3–20 m (10–66 ft) | Maximum slope you can actually build |
| 6 | Ground surface and drainage | Concrete / asphalt / compacted gravel | Wheel type, leg footprint, tie-down points |
If you can only send three of the six, send numbers 1, 2 and 5. Bed height plus forklift weight plus available length is enough for a factory engineer to tell you within one day whether your requirement is realistic at all.
Measuring Bed Height Without Getting It Wrong
This is the number people most often report incorrectly, and it is the one that sets the geometry of the whole ramp.
A standard dry van trailer floor sits around 1,220–1,270 mm (48–50 in) above the ground when the trailer is empty and standing on its own suspension. Load a 20 t shipment into it and the same trailer settles to roughly 1,120–1,170 mm (44–46 in). Air-suspension trailers move within that band as they load and unload; steel-spring trailers do not move much at all. A container on a road chassis has its own bed height, typically 1,150–1,250 mm depending on the chassis design and tyre size.
So there is no single “trailer height.” There is a range, and the ramp has to cover the bottom of that range without becoming useless at the top of it. Practical rules:
- Measure at the rear of a loaded vehicle, not the front of an empty one. The rear is where the ramp lip actually sits.
- Measure two vehicles, not one. If your fleet includes both a rigid truck and a container chassis, you have two bed heights and probably need a height-adjustable ramp rather than a fixed-slope one.
- Take a photo of the tape against the bed, with the reading visible. A photo removes all ambiguity and stops the factory from second-guessing your number.
- Report the lowest bed height you will ever have to serve. A ramp that can only reach the top of the range will fail on the first fully loaded trailer.
Forklift Data Your Supplier Actually Needs
Buyers send us the forklift’s rated capacity and stop there. That number tells us almost nothing, because the load on a ramp is not the rated capacity — it is the axle load, and it is dynamic.
| Send this | Why the factory needs it |
|---|---|
| Make, model and year | Cross-check published unladen weight and wheelbase |
| Unladen (service) weight | The baseline load even with nothing on the forks |
| Battery weight, if electric | Often 1.0–1.5 t on a 5 t class truck — frequently forgotten |
| Rated capacity at load centre | Determines peak dynamic load, not just steady load |
| Wheelbase and tyre type | Sizing of the support legs and deck loading pattern |
| Typical load weight, not maximum | Realistic duty cycle for fatigue life, not just a pass/fail |
Then apply a margin. The rule we use is a dynamic capacity of at least 2× the heaviest loaded-forklift axle load, and nearer 2.5× on ramps that run three shifts. This is why a “10-ton ramp” is not the right answer for a 5-ton forklift: the loaded axle load on the ramp can reach 10–12 t, which means the ramp itself needs to be rated roughly double its nominal label. If that feels like over-engineering, remember what the deck plate is doing when a loaded forklift stops halfway up: the load is no longer a rolling load, and the plate sees it all at once.
Slope interacts with all of this. Above roughly 10% grade, a loaded forklift must travel with the load pointing uphill, which is the rule written into OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178(n)(7)(i) for powered industrial trucks. That single line should decide your ramp length before aesthetics, price or shipping do.
The Drawing Pack: Eight Items to Attach
This is the complete list. It takes about forty minutes to assemble from a phone and a tape measure, and it removes roughly 80% of the back-and-forth from a custom order.
- A site sketch with dimensions. Hand-drawn is fine. Show the building, the door or opening, the parking area, and where the ramp will sit. Mark the distance from the door to the nearest obstruction.
- Four photos from four angles. Door plus approach, straight on, both sides. Include one photo of the ground surface close up.
- Door or opening width and height. A ramp 200 mm (7.9 in) wider than the door is useless; a ramp that cannot bring the deck level with the opening sill is worse.
- Bed height photo with tape reading, for each vehicle type you load from.
- Forklift specification sheet or the table data above.
- Power supply, if you want an electric hydraulic pump. Voltage, phase, frequency — 380 V/50 Hz for most of the Middle East and Europe, 220 V/60 Hz in parts of North America. Getting this wrong means a pump unit that cannot be commissioned on arrival.
- Paint colour and branding. Give a RAL code if you have one. If your logo goes on the side guard rail, send vector artwork, not a screenshot.
- Any site-specific constraint. Overhead cables, tight turning radius, weight limits on the paving, salt air, freezer operation, a fire marshal who insists on a certain guard rail height. Tell us, and it goes in the drawing.
If you would rather fill in a form than write an email, copy this and answer what you know. Blank lines are fine — we will ask about the ones that matter.
| Information sheet | Your answer |
|---|---|
| Vehicle bed height, loaded and empty | ______ mm / ______ in |
| Forklift make, model, unladen weight | ______ |
| Heaviest load to be handled | ______ t / ______ lb |
| Ramp width needed | ______ mm / ______ ft |
| Available approach length | ______ m / ______ ft |
| Ground surface | Concrete / asphalt / gravel |
| Lifting method wanted | Manual hydraulic / electric hydraulic / mechanical |
| Power supply (if electric) | ______ V, ______ phase, ______ Hz |
| Coating preference | Painted (RAL ____) / hot-dip galvanized |
| Import market and any certificate required | ______ |
| Photos attached | ______ of 4 |
Six Mistakes That Cause a Second Production Run
- Mixing units mid-document. Sending “about 48 inches wide” in one line and “2 metres” in the next. State which unit system you are using once, at the top, and stick to it. We convert and show both, but we cannot guess which of your two numbers was the real one.
- Quoting capacity by tonnage alone. “I need a 5-ton ramp” is not a specification. Five tons of what, measured where, static or rolling, with what margin?
- Forgetting side clearance. A yard ramp needs clear space on both sides for the fork-over end and the support legs. Facilities regularly measure the length correctly and then discover the legs foul a kerb.
- Ignoring the approach apron. The forklift needs a level run-up before it starts climbing. A 3 m (10 ft) apron and a ramp are not the same thing, and a truck parked too close to the ramp foot is a permanent operational problem.
- Ordering to the empty bed height. The ramp reaches the trailer when the trailer is loaded. Design to the low end of the range.
- Leaving certification for after the order. If the ramp includes any electric drive, the import certificate, technical file and Arabic or local-language documentation take time. Start that conversation before the container is booked.
Two standards are worth knowing before you specify, even if you never read them in full. ANSI MH30.2-2022 covers portable dock leveling devices, which is the closest documented framework to a mobile ramp, and EN 1398 governs dock leveling devices with a working slope referenced around 12.5% (approximately 7°) — a figure that is often quoted loosely, but which applies to fixed dock equipment rather than to a portable yard ramp. Quoting a slope limit without knowing which equipment class it belongs to is how over-specified and under-specified ramps both end up being built.
What Happens After You Hit Send
With a complete pack, the sequence at our end is short and predictable: engineering review and a first drawing within 48 hours; your approval on the drawing; 15–25 days production depending on capacity and whether the hydraulic package is custom; load testing and a QC photo set before packing; then export packing and loading. Share the drawings with whoever maintains the equipment on site — they are the people who will tell you that the entry angle is wrong for your particular floor drain.
FAQ
How much information is too much when ordering a custom loading ramp?
There is no upper limit. Photos, a hand sketch, the forklift’s service manual page and a mobile phone video of the yard all help. The expensive failures come from missing data, not from excess data. A factory engineer would rather delete irrelevant detail than fill a gap with an assumption.
What is the correct ramp length for a 1,200 mm (47 in) bed height?
Divide the rise by the grade you are willing to accept. At a 12% grade, 1,200 mm of rise needs about 10 m (33 ft) of ramp; at 10% it needs about 12 m (39 ft). That is geometry, not marketing — if your yard only allows 6 m, the honest answer is that you need a different loading arrangement, not a steeper ramp.
Do I need a drawing before requesting a price?
No. A site sketch, three photos and the bed height plus forklift data are enough for an indicative price. A formal quotation and a production drawing follow once the requirement is clear. Sending a photo of a competitor’s ramp and saying “like this but wider” is also a legitimate starting point.
Can a custom ramp be made to fit a fixed height with no adjustment?
Yes, and for a single vehicle type it is often the better choice — fewer moving parts, lower cost, nothing to adjust and nothing to mis-adjust. The mistake is ordering a fixed-slope ramp when the fleet actually contains two or three different bed heights. Send the full list before deciding.
Send the Site, Not Just the Specification
Ordering a custom loading ramp is a design conversation, and the quality of the drawings you get back is a direct function of the quality of what you send. Start with the mobile yard ramps range to see the standard platforms, then ask us what changes for your site — the heavy-duty hydraulic mobile yard ramp and the standard hydraulic mobile yard ramp cover most custom briefs. If there is no building to attach to at all, look at the free standing loading docks before you specify anything. Send your sketch, photos and forklift data through the contact page and we will come back with an engineering view, a drawing and an indicative price.
