Pro Balustrade
What do I need to make my own balustrade?
To make your own lengths of balustrade on site you will need:
- 1x 19 wire rope in either a 100m reel or 305m reel
- 1 pro end fitting and 1 pro rigging screw type fitting to tension the wire (for long lengths over 7m you can use 2 x rigging screw type fittings for added tension)
- You will also need wire cutters and a hydraulic swaging tool to press the fittings onto each end of the wire
- For balustrade pro fittings and wire you must use a hydraulic swaging tool to swage the fittings
- Cut the wires to length - swage a rigging screw type fitting onto 1 end, and an end fitting on the other.
- Then you just need to decide how you want to fix it to your posts and order your fittings... simple.
How many do I need?
Regulations for wire balustrades mostly relate to wire tension, typically the underside of a handrail will be 960mm or slightly above and so to achieve the required tension the space between wires should be around 80mm, therefore most balustrade sections consist of 11 runs. To maintain the required regulatory tension the distance between end or intermediate posts should typically be no more than 1.5 metres with a maximum run length of 7 metres if using only 1 rigging or turnbuckle screw to tighten.
For long lengths your total metre-age may be split into 2 runs - we'd recommend trying to keep runs under 7m in length where possible as tightening up runs over 7m becomes difficult with only 1 rigging screw.
