Dock bumpers can help you protect your building, your dock equipment and trailers. Every product that enters and exits your warehouse or manufacturing facility crosses through the dock, so it’s essential to maintain it and keep every bay in good condition.

Types of Dock Bumpers

Dock bumpers are generally positioned so that a truck or trailer "bumps" against them rather than against your building. This helps to protect your facility, your dock equipment and the truck or trailer that uses your dock.

There are numerous types of dock bumpers, and selecting a suitable bumper can be an important decision, depending upon the workload of your loading dock. Using overly-lightweight dock bumpers can sometimes lead to premature failure, while adding dock bumpers that are thicker than necessary will be ineffective and may actually create difficulties when securing trailers and trucks.

Not all facilities are the same, and the kind of dock bumpers you choose will be established by the average vehicle or trailer height, the approach, overall volume and many other factors. For facilities where trucks or trailers are likely to sway during loading or unloading operations, bumpers may be installed vertically or horizontally.

Molded Bumpers (Light Duty): Dock bumpers built from molded rubber can offer protection for low-traffic loading docks. In addition, molded bumpers are sometimes installed inside a warehouse to defend doorways, walls and other building components from lift trucks and other material handling equipment.

Molded rubber is prone to chipping and gouging with heavy use and is not as wear resistant as other types of bumpers. They may be a viable choice for your operation if your dock does not receive a lot of truck traffic.

Laminated Bumpers (Medium Duty): Laminated bumpers have more substantial pads than molded bumpers and provide increased shock absorption. They are fabricated from cut-to-size strips of recycled truck tires that are sandwiched between steel brackets.

Laminated bumpers have a medium level of wear resistance and are flexible when it comes to thickness, length, and height. They are frequently applied on docks set up with pit-style dock levelers or edge-of-dock equipment, since they allow enduring protection for high traffic loading docks.

Steel Faced Bumpers (Heavy Duty): Steel faced bumpers are equipped with a sliding piece of steel that overlays a conventional laminate bumper, inhibiting heavy wear and tear on the laminated pads. The durable metal enables trailers to press against the bumpers without breaking down the rubber. These bumpers provide exceptional resilience, and usually are in service more than four times as long as unprotected laminate bumpers.

When Should Dock Bumpers Be Replaced?

Although dock bumpers are meant to withstand daily abuse, they do deteriorate after sustained use and should be swapped out periodically. There are a few telltale signs that your dock bumpers must be refreshed.

When you see wear of more than 50%, it's time for replacement. Worn pads do not provide adequate impact absorption capacity to protect your warehouse. Pads that are excessively worn will sooner or later erode down to the metal brackets that anchor them, and this will likely elicit unnecessary damage to both trailers and brackets.

Apart from general wear and tear, you should look for other damage like splitting laminate layers, fractures, warped or rusting brackets and other evident defects. It's a good idea to schedule bumper inspections, just as you would routinely inspect your levelers and other dock equipment.

Truck Dock Bumpers Near Me

If you need to have your dock bumpers inspected or replaced, contact a dock equipment professional at Raymond West today.

Raymond West's Sacramento facility serves the greater Sacramento area and other parts of Northern California, including Sacramento, Elk Grove, Auburn, Placerville, Vacaville, Fairfield, Sausalito, Napa, Santa Rosa, Redding, Eureka and all surrounding areas.

Raymond West | Sacramento Material Handling Equipment Supplier

900 National Dr
Sacramento, CA 95834
(800) 675-2500