Deck Railing Specs
- In the U.S., a perimeter deck railing is a requirement for decks with surfaces that are 30 inches off the ground or higher. As Ideas-For-Deck-Designs.com notes, for deck surfaces between 30 inches and 5 feet 10 inches in height, the railing must be a minimum of 36 inches high. For deck surfaces with heights greater than 5 feet 10 inches, the railing must have a minimum height of 42 inches.
- Also known as top rails, guardrails refer to the horizontal beams that extend along the tops of balusters, between support posts. According to InspectaAPedia, a typical guardrail has dimensions of two inches by six inches. You can position a guardrail on a deck so that its wider side faces up, which will create flat surfaces suitable for holding cups and other items; or you can position a guardrail so that its narrower side faces up, providing a better surface for gripping. Regardless of how you position the guardrails, for best results you should utilize long, continuous beams in their construction, as opposed to fastening together several shorter sections.
- If your deck has more than three steps leading up to it, you will need to install at least one handrail. However, if your deck has more than three steps and the staircase has an overall width of 43 inches or greater, two handrails -- one on either side of the steps -- are required. A proper handrail will be between 1.5 and 2 inches in thickness or width.
- The balusters -- or vertical uprights that stretch between railing posts -- must be spaced apart at specific, balanced distances. Otherwise, the aesthetics of the railing could suffer and the spaces could become hazardous for small children. As Universal Forest Products notes, most building codes require that balusters be spaced apart at maximum distances of less than 4 inches. To be safe, you could use a distance of 3.75 inches as your spacing measurement.
- If a deck railing does not have the proper load-bearing specifications, leaning or sitting on a deck railing could potentially cause it to fail structurally. According to Ideas-For-Deck-Designs.com, a deck railing must be able to handle a horizontal load of 200 lbs. at any point along its guardrail, as well as a horizontal load of 200 lbs. over a 1-square-foot area of any part of its guardrail. In addition, the guardrail must be able to resist a simultaneous horizontal load of 50 lbs. and vertical load of 100 lbs.