Tag-Archive for ◊ glass railings ◊

Balcony’s sales team have just returned from the NEC in Birmingham where Balcony exhibited for the 4th year running at the Grand Designs Live exhibition.

Balcony’s Managing Director Effi Wolff says “We have just had another fantastic show. We always find that Grand Designs is the right show for us and puts us and our products in front of the right sort of public. There is no doubt that this was one of our best shows ever with hundreds of new enquiries and new sales taken at the show”

Balcony exhibited their proprietary glass railing systems, Juliet balconies and their stunning curved doors.

“There was a great increase in interest in our curved sliding doors” continues Effi Wolff “We see the interest grow from show to show as architects become aware of the ability to have curved glass sliding doors and send their customer to feel the product first hand.”

Balcony exhibited a set of doors that is 2.6m high creating a stunning reaction from the public.

All the glass railings and juliets on the stand of course had Balcoiny’s new double sided self clean coating that is prooving to be a giant success.

Started over two years ago the development of over 600 apartments is nearing completion at the “Crossharbour” suite in East London.

The site is part of the redevelopment of East London in preparation for the 2012 Olympics due to take place in London that summer.

Balcony Systems was involved in the supply of over 4500 meters of their unique glass railing system and a special facia solution for the balcony structure.

Over 6 different special aluminium profiles were specifically extruded for this project. Handrails were finished in Balcony’s proprietary handrail finish called “Royal Chrome” which the architects found extremely pleasing.

The fascia were finished in a metallic anodize colour that uses a special method to break the light giving it a blue-grey colour.

The glass railing were required to use laminated toughened glasses so the balconies conform to both European and British standards:

Normal designs of balustrades, or shall we say until Balcony Systems Balustrade system was introduced, have always relied on the strength of posts cantilevering from the floor or relied on the strength of glass clamped at the floor to resist the loads at the top.

This is the traditional and frequently seen solution for balustrades, glass or not.

Resisting the loads

The glass balustrades supplied by balcony systems has broken this routine and introduced a refreshingly innovative approach to resisting the loads. Rather than cantilevering the load and thus needing to design a very rigid base the handrail is designed to take loads direct at the design height.

Fixing the handrail to the falls allow the handrail to work as a rigid element which resists the loads. When corners are introduced the special way the handrail parts are connected and the way the glass is continuously silicone sealed to the glass along the long edge of the glass uses the shearing load of the glass from the handrail right down to the base rail. Again this “out of the box” approach allows for clean glass corners and for cornered balconies to require less posts than ever.

Spreading the resistance across the curve

To top these designs some curved balconies, depending on the radii, are amazingly strong without posts! The curved glass railing is a very stable element to the greater ability of the curve to resist a load by way of spreading the resistance across the curve, similar to a brick arch. In addition the glass itself lends additional horizontal support in a fashion that each curved glass panel cannot bend along the vertical side.