How to secure hand railing to felt covered flat roof.

[markashley]

Afternoon all, hope you are well. I am considering putting a hand rail on the flat roof at the back of the house but unsure how I would secure it safely. It will be "L" shaped so secured to the wall at each end. But at 3m x 6m I would also need to secure it to the flat roof at some point but I have no idea how to do it without worry about penetrations causing the roof to leak.

It is a standard felt covered ply. The design of the fascia and guttering below it means the rail could not secure to the front of the brickwork below.

Any ideas or advice from people with experience would be hugely welcome - pics ain't great but give an idea.

Thanks, Mark.

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• markashley
• 8 Sep 2014
• 1

 

[Alastairreid]

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2073774

 

[markashley]

Hmm.. Cheers for the reply but that post doesn't really help with the securing of this railing, just more the structure of the roof (which has already been built for the purpose). It was more the fixing of the railing to the rooftop which is the issue.

Mark.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

You don't fix the base plate to the deck and hope for the best the whole structure of the flat roof needs to be up to it so if the structure has been designed for the job then you need to be fitting the handrail to the roof during construction not after the final roof finish has already been applied.

Anyway, structural headaches aside, waterproofing is easy and the least of your worries. I'm very surprised you managed to get PP for it.

Have a read through this fella: //www.diynot.com/forums/building/fitting-hand-rails-to-a-flat-roof.370058/#2819748

The principle is simple, you just dress the membrane or felt or whatever the roof is up the balusters and add a cowl to stop the worst:

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• freddiemercurystwin
• 27 May 2010
• 4

 

[markashley]

You don't fix the base plate to the deck and hope for the best the whole structure of the flat roof needs to be up to it so if the structure has been designed for the job then you need to be fitting the handrail to the roof during construction not after the final roof finish has already been applied.

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• freddiemercurystwin
• 27 May 2010
• 4

Agreed. This is where my foresight has fallen short. When we rebuilt the roof I had it calculated and built to be compliant in regards to people accessing it. But at the time I didn't have a thought towards securing a railing. To be honest all the work went on only a few months ago and I wasn't planning on fitting any railings any time soon (years), but the plan has come together quicker than I'd have hoped and now I'm seeing what I can do short of taking the roof back up!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

So it begs the question what does the structure do? Is it designed for a handrail or not? If it is then what is/was the proposed detail for fitting the baluster?

Not trying to be awkward, we've just seen this kind of thing posted all too often before where the OP has little appreciation for the forward thinking required at the drawing board stage.

 

[markashley]

So it begs the question what does the structure do? Is it designed for a handrail or not? If it is then what is/was the proposed detail for fitting the baluster?

Not trying to be awkward, we've just seen this kind of thing posted all too often before where the OP has little appreciation for the forward thinking required at the drawing board stage.

Ha! So u may have just come across another

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm very surprised you managed to get PP for it.

Maybe that's another thing the OP didn't think about at the drawing board stage. It could be that the best advice to give him is to fix it in such a way that it can be quickly and easily removed when the council tell him to.