Drilling posts for ballustrade wire threading

[Dunny]

Hey guys, went through all this pretty recently. Its all in the BCA may 2006 update.


1. no climbable members (ie horizontal wires) if deck over 4m above ground.

2. No railing needed if under 1m high deck.

3. A table for stainless wires is now in the BCA. The wider the pole spacing, the higher the required tension of the wires and the closer they must be. It is measured by hanging a weight off the wire to measure the deflection. It also has the different wire thicknesses listed. The theory is that it must now resist a 125mm sphere with a certain amount of force, rather than just having a maximum 125 spacing.

4. 865mm high railing for a landing less than 500mm long

Please atatchment for details

Cheers Pulse

Thanks Pulse - I thought this was going to be a straight forward job!

[scooter]

I was planning to use 1.57mm gal wire with gal fence strainers (just a country weekender property so I'm not too fussed about expensive stainless fittings) which can be easily tightened with a spanner.

Gday Dunny, if that's the case use Gripples. can't undo them like the strainers but mucho neater. Pic below


Cheers............Sean

[scottyb]

BCA says 125 mm but I would definitely go with a vertical spacing of no more than 95 - have seen a 2 year old stuck by the ears after poking their head through a 125 mm gap. 125 is way too big for crawlers also.

[pharmaboy2]

gee, more complicated regulations to add to the existing - who'd have thought?

FWIW, we had a 3.5m deck with 125mm spacings, and a toddler. Some points to note from the real world of having lived with said toddler on deck.

1. Bare feet - good thing, standing on 2mm wire hurts the4 bottom of your feet, and no toddler ever managed to stand on the second strand of wire ever - pain takes over and they jump off.

2. Head in gap - the tension makes getting a head stuck impossible - or at least very easy fixed - think about it, if toddler can get head in there, you can surely provide more strength than toddler to widen the wires to get them out - a lesson learnt for the toddler - this is a good thing. (not like the old steel balasters where getting properly stcuk was a real problem.

3. Tension is easy to get to just about any point as long as its a steel contrcuction with solid rail holding them apart - 90/90 timber posts without rail is the install that will be difficult, as the wire will need to be connected at ends to something with less give.

4 Tension is "bad" mmm kay. There is a balance, if its very taught with almost no deflection when a 12kg child stands on it, its stable to climb (with shoes on), howver when it bends, it swings, and is difficult to climb - I'm sure we've all experienced this climbing farm fences - the loose ones are the trickiest to climb!.

If crawlers are envisaged, I'd be sliding perspex between the wires as a temporary - or ply or anything temporary - as piece of mind with bubs is important. I got sick and tired of the shreaks from old women visting our place with my son on the deck - I knew he couldnt get through or over, but the relo visiting is convinced that you are incompetent and the child is going to go over the edge at any moment - so barriers for nervous visitors and even nervous wives perhaps.

BTW, even I would have been nervous had it been a 4 m drop to concrete - but gardens break falls (at least did for me as a kid many times ;D )