Case Study: The Safety of Wood Railings

When the handrail assembly broke away from a wooden deck attached to the rear of a private residence, the victim fell 12 feet to the lawn and sustained injuries rendering him a quadriplegic. Although the local building code required the handrail to withstand a 200 lb load applied in any direction at any point on the handrail, no guidance was given to the do-it-yourselfer who built the deck and railings to assure him that the final construction would produce an acceptable railing. The authors conducted testing and a statistical analysis of railing strength comparing the construction method used by the builder of the accident railing to another construction method utilizing a commercially available handrail bracket. The test program demonstrates that the strength of the wood used to build handrails can vary greatly and that a controlled method of building a handrail is necessary to ensure the integrity of a product intended to be consumer customized and assembled. It is necessary to have acceptable methods of railing construction because the failure of a railing joint can be life threatening. This is especially true in the consumer/do-it-yourself market where the designer/builder is not necessarily knowledgeable about building codes or construction methods. A commercially available handrail bracket known as Create-A-Rail® can provide the consumer with the guidance necessary to assure an acceptable handrail / post joint.