Think about building use

Part of our holiday was spent pitching in to help Dad finish parts of his new deck: staining, putting a roof over one area, and fixing some stairs in place. It was not my usual activity, so it was pretty fun.

The deck is fabulous. It now has a large covered area on the north side, which has direct access from the house, stair access from the front of the section, and a nicely sloped ramp toward the back. But here’s the thing: Mum is slower on her feet and mostly uses a combination of walker/walking stick, and not all of the deck was set up for handrails because it is less than a metre fall from the deck to the ground.

“When it’s possible to fall 1.0m or more from a deck, the Building Code requires a barrier able to withstand all imposed, wind and impact loads.”

As we pointed out to Dad, by the time you add on seating, even if it is only a portable chair, it puts you over a metre from the ground, and given that Mum can be wobbly, the entire deck needs handrails. This led to discussions about the use of the deck, the different activities envisaged around the deck, the different furniture (fixed or portable) that would be used and what might be required to stop people from falling off.

Thinking about it now, the ramp without handrails actually poses a larger risk than it looks with regard to falls. Firstly, if you don’t walk to the top of the ramp, you can unexpectedly step off the deck onto a sloping surface. Secondly, if you aren’t at the bottom of the ramp, you can unexpectedly step off the ramp onto the sloped ground. There are court rulings that the sloped ground's height should be included in the fall height from the deck. This would put the fall height from Dad’s ramp closer to 2 metres, even when the ramp is only 50mm high off the ground! Thankfully, the ramp already has the posts in place for handrails, but Dad will have to work out how to fix supports for the rest of the railings around the deck.

The point of my story is that while the deck build was to code, the building code requirements may change once you factor in how the deck will be used, and then the original build design may be insufficient for the changed circumstances. And if, like me, the people at risk are significant to you, then you would likely want to maximise the built-in safety of a build’s design.

Government regulations and standards are only ever a minimum requirement.

If you are planning a new building or are changing building use or the audiences/users, then think about the risks that these changes and combinations will create.

·         If you lease a building to a childcare then the building needs fire evacuation features which then require a building warrant of fitness. If the childcare moves out you might be able to decommission the evacuation features and the building warrant of fitness.

·         If you change a normal house into a rental house then you need to meet Healthy Home standards

·         If your new deck has a fall potential which could cause significant harm, you should install fall prevention measures like handrails.

Nā Trudy Downes
healthandsafety@methodist.org.nz

If you are planning, building or renovating a deck, you may find this information useful: https://www.building.govt.nz/building-code-compliance/f-safety-of-users/f4-safety-from-falling/barriers-and-handrails.