This balau balaster we produced in Everton Kloof, Durban was for an established client of ours that we have done various amounts of jobs for prior to now. She had had some stairs built in brick and concrete down the bank to access the lower level of her property. We had to wait several weeks in order for the concrete to cure successfully before we drilled into the side of it. It’s usually a pleasure setting up a wooden balustrade onto a concrete substrate as opposed to a brick or block substrate. With concrete your holes can be drilled easily and the sleeve anchors utilised to win the posts to the side of the steps take nicely and bind correctly. When drilling into bricks, or even worse blocks, the cavity that exists in the brick or block virtually always creates a problem in that the sleeve anchor has nothing to set itself against and ends up turning on itself and not binding properly. It’s most frustrating and occasionally results in drilling new holes to find a strong substrate or even going the chemical anchor route. If one is drilling into blocks with big cavities, it is sometimes much better to go the chemical anchor direction from the starting.
Chemical anchors include sleeves which are inserted in to the holes initially after which the two-part chemical is squeezed into that and then a thread bar is inserted. These chemical compounds dry incredibly quickly, in a couple of minutes or less, and the thread bar is then set securely in the wall. A post can now be pre drilled and inserted over the thread bar and washers and nuts fastened onto that. It’s a much more powerful bond than sleeve anchors, albeit a lot more costly. Nowadays chemical anchors can cost approximately R300-00 for every tube, the size of a tube of silicone, and the sleeves are about R15-00 each.
This wooden balaster needed to have a bend in it that can be seen in the pictures alongside because the top tread was deeper than the rest of the treads. There was a short landing on the top where the balustrade needed to be level with ground. This was the usual vertical picket style balustrade and we sealed it by using our favorite Timberlife Satin Wood Base 28 in a mahogany tint. Working with this product will result in minimal upkeep costs moving forward as no sanding will be needed when re-sealing. You in fact clean and re-seal.
Balustrades are not the easiest thing to install. One needs to be very careful that both rails are parallel to each other and that they are parallel to the tips of the risers. Of course the tips of each riser will not necessarily be in a straight line. What we do is run a straight edge or fish line across all the risers to get an average line that we work from. The lower rail is then set parallel to this line and the top rail and hence the capping is set to this, again parallel. One also needs to be careful when taking corners. Often the distance between the capping and the steps can vary, especially if there is a landing involved. Where a balustrade arrives at a landing one needs to step the balustrade so that the capping will remain at the 1m mark above ground.
For a free no obligation quote on your wooden balustrades or other timber construction, please complete the form below and I will contact you or you can contact me on 082 496 5444.
No Comments Found