Balustrades for Public Areas

Balcony Systems limited has manufactured and supplied thousands of meters of glass balcony balustrade systems.

The majority of these balustrades have been destined for private residential use, whether this is a single family dwelling, a hotel room, private balcony or Juliet balcony.

The British standard required external balconies in these sort of locations to withstand 0.74 kN force per linear meter. This is appx equal to 75kg of force on the handrail every meter, or could be translated to say one fully grown adult on every meter of balustrade with an average weight of 75Kg placing their entire body weight against the handrail.

Balcony systems' balustrades have been designed and tested to meet these loads and achieve a great result with a relatively small number of vertical posts required. This has been the great appeal of the system, the small amount of posts required, no corner posts and glass from handrail to bottom rail without the need for ugly clamps or glass fixings.

A lot of request had come in to Balcony to supply their system to the public sector. The problem was that in the public sector the loads are double that of the residential sector (excluding malls, discotheques and similar where the loads are quadrupled).

So the challenge was to meet these loads without having to make the system require a post every meter or have to change significantly.

After overcoming all the technical issues and design work Balcony Systems Solutions Ltd have been able to modify the Balcony 1 system with special high tensile strength posts that will meet the public level loads (1.5 kN per linear meter) and will still allow a span of 2.0m between posts!

This is an enormous improvement of any and all existing systems which require a post appx every meter. This is due both to the enhanced strength of the new type of post and also the immense strength of the Balcony 1 handrail.

Now with the Royal Chrome finish on the system you can achieve a durable and beautiful system that is just like stainless steel but without the associated problems of stainless, plus have it meet public area standards.

Since forever curved elements in buildings have been used to create superior aesthetics.

Curved elements bring with them an inherent strength and a pleasing to eye effect.

Curved balconies, curved top windows and doors, curved walls, domes, ellipses, spiral stairs etc are all elements used by architects to enhance the building they are designing.

It is interesting to note that in the modern age where budgets are seemingly more of an obstacle that these curved are often discarded or ruined by introduction of "facetted" curves rather than good old "round" curves.

With industrialization of the building industry many companies have become proficient in producing quantities of standard "flat" elements including glass. But when curved elements are introduced this creates a "hiccup" in the system as these cannot be industrially done.

It seems that in each area where curved elements are concerned there come to be specialists in this niche, companies that specialize in manufacture of specific bespoke or tailor made "curved" elements.

This is true of curved glass both in curved balconies and curved doors; this is true of curved metal work in elements such as spiral stairs, curved top windows and doors, curved sliding doors, curved handrails etc.

These companies usually develop specially machinery to overcome the problems related to curving elements.

Architects fight the battle against the client's budget when it comes to curved facades, and unfortunately usually the budget wins. But then again on occasion it is aesthetics that win and the end result is beautiful.

As machinery develops prices of curved elements come down and become more readily available for use.

With curved glass it must be very exactly matched to the curved doors otherwise the product will not work well. Balcony Systems has invested in tailor made and built machinery and accessories specially designed to suit curved profiles and curved glass elements. This has enabled the company to both become very professional in the field of curved sliding doors and curved glass balconies and to do this with relative ease and so not need to charge extortionate amounts for these products.