4 x 2 joist under the dislodged bricks, high lift jack to gently raise the dislodged course up and then forward.
Then you need to coerce the bricks back to where they were originally.instastick should be enough to hold them very temporarily.
Then reduce the length to 3 panels, bury the rail into the mud on the side of the wall near the swing .
Use rubber strip between the brick and the glass.
Then get the wall rebuilt maybe with a pier for the 3 pane of glass.
Burying the aluminium channel and glass by say 30cm will reduce the wind load and massively increase the resistance to failure.
Burying the aluminium channel and glass by say 30cm will reduce the wind load and massively
To make a nice see through tripping hazard?
We have a big glass balustrade and its killed 3 birds (that I know of) in the last 10 years. I'd wager the local cats have done far more damage.
Back on topic, could you use the seat frame and some straps to pull the bricks and glass back up. As a kind of A frame with a line going over the top and round the bricks?
A see through trip hazard?
It's like a meter high now , bury 30 cm and it will be 70cm high , not ankle high.
Plus it's on the high side of a drop. The wall it's attached to is a retainer for the earth the secs swing is on .
So it is on the way to no where.
Bury it and get another ally section to top it would also be wise.
Spread the load and demark the drop
If it were me I'd be finding a couple of long bits of timber and clamping either side of the glass panels to try and stablise them a bit before I tried to do any lifting or moving. Wood is just there to try and hold the top parts of the panels, and stop them twisting / falling on your head as you mess about with a jack beneath them. In fact I'd probably try to rig up some sort of pully that could pull from either end and distribute some of the force than try to jack it up where it could land on me.
Once you've got them back into position it should be easier to dismantel, I'd say the track is for the bin and as others have said you need a rethink on the fixings. Big posts and then reuse the glass between them maybe
I started to move it with a length of wood and some ropes rigged up to make a pully but then is started to move on its own so I stopped.
A builder is coming tomorrow to quote for re-instating the balustrade and rebuilding the wall with the concrete core that was on the wall we inspected before putting it there in the first place.
This made me smile [i]No, I am not moving to a solid brick bungalow on the off chance a sparrow flies into a pane of glass.
Based on the outside wall.. are you sure it’s solid?[/i]
Back on the bird thing for a minute - the local cats cannot jump through this balustrade and kill the birds in the trees and bushes below like they did witht he old version. This has definitely saved more birds than it has killed.
Why not take the opportunity to replace that eyesore with some decent timber posts and stainless steel cable/rope so it’s less of a bird killer.<br /><br />
It’s really no more a ‘bird killer’ than sliding living-room windows, large kitchen windows, patio windows…
I have a large flock of starlings raid my feeders quite regularly every day, and it’s not at all unusual to hear a loud, dull thump when one takes off heading for the roof and misjudges the sky reflecting off a window for the actual sky and bounces off - after at least a decade of this occurrence, I’ve yet to find a stunned or injured bird on my patio. My mate, who lives in a bungalow with very large windows and a 10-acre field next to his garden has a photo of the clear outline of a bird left on a window by the dust from its feathers after hitting the glass,. No injured bird found there, either.
Feathers left by the neighbourhood murder machines, on the other hand… 🤷🏼😖
you have found a builder who is able to come out and quote within 24hrs of this happening?! christ it took me months to find anyone who would even answer their bloody phone
https://www.vinehousefarm.co.uk/window-alerts
There you go, they are not foolproof as some of our more cretinous pidgeons still manage to hit the window, but better than find bird corpses on the lawn.
Move an existing panel/add a panel and return the screen at a right-angle along the top of the adjacent wall so that it's more likely to support itself
The plan now is to replace the weeds/lawn with a small strip of patio slabs so the swing will sit on those instead of sink into the mud. This will also allow us to lay horizontal rebar under these slabs and into the wall to provide more support for that. The wall will be rebuilt to match the other walls, the ones we checked before installation and with no issues, and then bolt the balustrade back into those.
Timba - We did think of the 90 degree option but there isn't room to do that as there is a stepo down quite close to the corner and other issues.
Posts vs Channel for support - I am not sure why a post held with 4 bolts at each end of the panels will be better fixed than the channel bolted every 15cm. In both cases they are reliant on the strength of the supporting bricks/concrete and the posts focus this strain on 4 localised bolts rather than 10 spread evenly along the length.
You can't bolt it into bricks - Actually you can as long as they are solid and there is concrete under them to provide a solid support. We checked this before installing the balustrade but only in a couple of places. What we hadn't realised was the whoever built the original patio, or extended it, used brick and concrete for most of it but not for the two end section. The one by the drive that collapsed 2 years ago appears to be a late addition as it was a single skin brick wall with massive voids under the patio slabs whereas the rest of the patio is pretty solid. The section that has just failed appears to have simply been skimped on. All other bits of the wall have been checked and confirmed as solid.
Bird killer - I think we have covered and confirmed that it is bollecks
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/8Cb0Qk3v/Patio-Wall.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/8Cb0Qk3v/Patio-Wall.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
Just make sure to bolt the swing to the patio 😉
If the next storm blows it into the now immovable glass, the panes might not survive so well.
Anyway, I think it would be much simpler and cheaper just to leave it off now. There are bushes there anyway to catch anyone falling off the edge, don't see the issue 🤷♂️
Surely this is an insurance job? Then the contractors will have to sort out how bet to proceed - probably by smashing what is there and starting again.
I am not sure why a post held with 4 bolts at each end of the panels will be better fixed than the channel bolted every 15cm.
Because a post will offer support right to the top of the glass while the channel simply holds it at the bottom and the unsupported glass can act as a greater lever - as you have found.
You're main problem was bolting it down into cheese.
[i]You’re main problem was bolting it down into cheese[/i] - This is correct and what we are fixing
I still disagree with the posts vs channel point though. The balustrade is approx 1m high and 4m long with a small gap down the dies of each panel.
The glass doesn't bend or flex whether it is fixed to a post or to the channel so all leverage is on the bottom - either the channel or the post.
The force of the wind against the glass is basically the same regardless of fixing method so all of that force is focussed onto the fixings ad the bottom.
If there we 4 posts that would mean 4 sets of 3 or 4 bolts close together taking all the force. 12-16 bolts at 4 distinct points. With the channel there are (4m/15cm=26) 26 bolts spreading the load evenly along the 4m length.
Not only is there less force being applied to each bolt, there is significantly less force being apply to the wall at the points where the posts would be fitted.
Anyway, the point about the wall being the problem is clearly true and that is being addressed. I have just lifted the glass panels out for the moment.
*I am not an engineer* - I would have thought spreading the load over more than one edge is what you need to achieve for more strength to the wind, not more points of contact on the bottom edge where the wind at the top of the panel can increase leverage.
These ones are secured on three edges:
Toughened Balustrade Safety Glass 10mm Tinted/Satinised – Deck Supermarket
But, it does also require the post is actually fitted securely too (!)
*I am not an engineer* – I would have thought spreading the load over more than one edge is what you need to achieve for more strength to the wind,
*I am*
The glass is fine, the alloy channel is fine
The whole system is fine infact.
What's not fine is the wall it was bolted to WCA needs to do is rebuild or reinforce what is there.
The panels on the cars in that photo look all crumpled. Maybe you could replace them with something else 😉
What Joshvags said.
To rebuild ie re bed the brick on edge coping and then bolt on again will fail again, may just take the next course of brick off, everything is so green with moss , it's only a 9" wall, there is no bonding with the brick on edge, every chance the mortar is a weak mix of sand and cement with too much plasticiser
Soldier bricks stand tall not lying down, from earlier in the thread
Could have been worse!
Like you say deeper fixings or spread the load out to the side.
