Hints & Tips for Decks, Stairs & Pools

The basic regulations applying to Decks stairs and swimming pools are as follows:

Decks:

• If the fall is greater than 1 meter (1000mm) then a barrier or balustrade needs to be erected
• If the fall is greater than 4000mm then the balustrade must be constructed with a non climable infill between 150mm above the deck and 760mm above the deck. This means you probable cannot use wire or tube that runs horizontally.
• The maximum gap that can exist in the balustrade is 125mm. If you can fit a 125mm diameter sphere through any gaps, you will not meet the regulation - if you use wire this has special rules.
• If wire is used as the infill, the wire must be tensioned so that a 2kg weight hung on a wire between posts will not deflect the wire more than 6 mm (approximately). A table is in BCA (Building Code of Australia) that basically says is you are using 3.2mm diameter wire (the most common) then the wires must not be spaced more than 80mm apart and the posts must be no more than 1000mm between centers. This requires eleven wires as infill.

NOTE: BCA does not permit a frameless glass balustrade above a 1000mm fall without a top rail.

Stairs

The same regulations exist for stairs as decks with a few modifications

• The height of the handrail above the nose of a stair is a minimum of 865mm.

The maximum gap is still 125mm but when measuring to the infill above the stair it is measured from the nose of the stair perpendicular to the bottom infill.

Pools

• Pool fences are required to be 1200mm high.
• The gap between any element must not be more than 100mm
• The gap between the ground and the bottom of the infill must be less than 100mm
• Any object wider than 10mm attached to the fence constitutes a foothold and such footholds must be separated by at least 900mm vertically and must be 1100mm from the top of the fence.
• The fence must be built so that no object is within 1200mm of the top of the fence.
• Gates must :

a. Self close
b. have gaps no larger than 10mm either side
c. Have a self locking mechanism located 1500mm from ground level
d. Have a minimum 450mm reach from outside the pool to open the latch through any vertical bars.