Anyone have any ideas of rooflight / Part K situation?

[GEO-PAR]

I have a roof terrace at the back of my new build. Next to the terrace I have a rooflight providing light into the deep plan space below.  The issue I have is that I both don't want and am now unable to put a gaurdrail up along the edge (upstand is only blockwork and is not all waterproofed).  However I understand from Part K this required.  I am going to enquire about making the glass 'walk-on' but have a feeling it's going to massively increase the price to the point I cannot afford.  Anyone experienced similar and keen to know how you got over this? 

 

[Mr Punter]

If the rooflights are toughened and laminated the requirement for balustrade may be reduced anyway.  Don't forget access for cleaning with all that glass.

[kandgmitchell]

Not easy to reconcile "don't want" and "unable to" with compliance with Part K. I hear what Mr Punter has to say, but BC will want proof that these rooflights will be capable of sustaining the loads imposed by a falling person and how do you do that? A very cautious BCO may say "what if the rooflights are open?". 

 

Walk on glass may be an option but can you be sure the rooflight frames and fixings are suitable for foot traffic?

 

I would have thought one of the many available fully glazed modular systems available on line is your only option, but fixing down adequately and ensuring good waterproofing at this late stage are going to be the issues.

 

[Mike]

In addition to the Building Regs, the 'principal designer' - i.e. you, if you haven't formally appointed anyone else to the task -  is required to comply with the the CDM (Construction Design and Management) Regs. They make them / you legally responsible for eliminating safety risks during construction, cleaning, maintenance & demolition (or mitigating the risk if that's impossible) at design stage, involving a risk assessment. They come with some pretty severe potential penalties.

 

Handrails or walk-on glass might be adequate solutions, but I see no obvious way of dispensing with both while being able to safely clean or repair the windows & the rest of the structure above.

[GEO-PAR]

Thanks all.  I'm waiting on a quote regarding a walk on glass rooflight. Hopefully it isn't too eye watering. 

[Conor]

What stage are you at? It's not an ideal design, a better one would be a full roof terrace, with an alternative way to get light down to below. E.g. light tunnels, windows on the gable wall. Or, my preference when we toyed with a similar design, smaller sections of walk-on glazing roof lights spread across the roof, same dimensions as the paving. You get a lot of light from horizontal glazing, you need a lot less than you think.

 

It's a good example of a design not considering CDM. How do the glazers install the windows? How do you clean the gutters?

 

The roof light on the LHS might be an issue as well as looks to be low enough to fall into.

 

Good luck, hopefully an easy solution is waiting to be discovered.

[JohnMo]

We are in a bungalow and have an internal corridor, we have two small roof lights only and it's surprising how much light the bring in.

 

Other ideas, at the leading edge of the roof windows build up a wall and place the roof in windows higher, so they are at window cil level. Get natural protection. Same window just install higher.

 

Question - Realistically will you ever use that space, when and how. For me and our household we never would. I would really look at the reasons for even doing this, not cheap, not easy, maybe never used space.

[Alan Ambrose]

Maybe it’s worth re-visiting potential guardrail designs? You have one round the rest of the terrace, would one using the same aesthetics not blend in well? Maybe an hour or two of SE time to ensure the fixings work and satisfy BC? You might need that anyway for the rest of the rail.

[Conor]

Oh, one more thing. We installed 15m of frameless ballustrading. Part of it was to go onto a brick wall. SE was having none of it. So we used a length of RSJ that was secured at each end to stop twisting. You might have that option there- length of steel running along the top of your block work, then encase in your roofing material and ballustrade fixings.

[GEO-PAR]

1 hour ago, Conor said:

Oh, one more thing. We installed 15m of frameless ballustrading. Part of it was to go onto a brick wall. SE was having none of it. So we used a length of RSJ that was secured at each end to stop twisting. You might have that option there- length of steel running along the top of your block work, then encase in your roofing material and ballustrade fixings.

This is actually a very good idea.  Part of the reason I have been reluctant to go down the balustrade route is that I have already created an upstand out of blockwork and had it all waterproofed.  In order for it to be robust enough to take the 0.74kn required line load, I was thinking I'd have to rip it all out and cast an rc upstand, which I obviously don't want to do.  But I think putting a steel along here could be a relatively cost effective way of getting over it. I'm going to wait for the walk on rooflight cost to come back first before making any decisions but I'm anticipating this being £10-15k, which isn't affordable. 

[Spinny]

I have sunsquare rooflights. For standard sizes on their website the cost for walkon seems to very roughly double. The weight also goes up.

 

Whatever the cost impact, I would say think carefully when you are making decisions which will have a very long life and impact maintainability. An extra £8k on rooflights may seem an awful lot, but over 30 years, it is just £266 a year which could easily be exceeded by annual additional cleaning/maintenance costs if you cannot walk on those rooflights.

 

As stated above you are going to need access to clean the outside of those windows (and the rooflights). That means standing on the glass rooflights - anti-slip considerations maybe too. Alternatively some thought to a design where you can temporarily install weight bearing boards over and across the rooflights for cleaning and maintenance.