Relandscaping - clarification of regs around guarding of drops over 600mm

Lumen

I'm relandscaping my back garden, and part of the design is a series of low (500mm) retaining walls.

My wife wants the top one (on the edge of a patio) to be an additional 300mm high to give a sitting wall.

This means the drop from the patio will still be 500mm, but from standing on the top of the wall will be 800mm. So if you trip over the wall you fall 500mm, but if you jump off the wall you fall 800mm.

Question: since (I believe) more than 600mm drop requires guarding (handrail) which I obvs don't want, is the drop measured from the patio or the top of the wall?

A compromise is to keep the wall at 500mm but sink the patio near the wall into a kind of a well, but that involves breaking up the space which makes it less practical.

sydthebeat

id argue that, in this situation, the building regulations you are referring to do not apply, unless the drop is from the house onto the sunken patio.

Protection from falling.

K2 In a building the sides of every floor, balcony and every part of a roof to which people normally have access, and sunken areas connected to a building, shall be guarded to protect users from the risk of falling.

in the interest of safety though, id ensure the wall is wide enough to act as a step and be visually incongruous to the area 300mm below it.

Lumen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122391722#Comment_122391722

Thanks syd.

What sort of thing is meant by "sunken areas connected to a building"? Would that be a sunken area you could fall into from the building? i.e. the regs only apply to people falling out of buildings, not falling from one area of the site on to another.

Obviously I'm not trying to create deathtraps and common sense applies.

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122391722#Comment_122391722

But don't the building regulations apply to the approaches to buildings?

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122392963#Comment_122392963

I specially said "in this situation, the building regulations you are referring" ie guarding at a patio from a lawn area.

Approach to a building is covered under Part M, and compliance with part K forms part of that regulation.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122392947#Comment_122392947

Imagine the side wall of your house has a path which fluctuates been 500mm below a window cill level at one end and 1500mm below another at the other end.

The latter window has guarding regs applicable, the former doesn't. See section 2.7 of tgd k.

So in the case of a landscape garden, in my option these building regulations do not apply, as they apply, in the main, to buildings, not gardens

Mellor

I'd agree in general that the regs apply to buildings rather than gardens. But I also think I'd draw the line for the garden to be the edge of the patio and not the rear wall.

If people are going to access and congregate on the patio, then it needs to be safe for those people. If this was a raised deck with a 2m drop. We'd all agree a guarding is needed. Functionally, a deck and patio serve the same purpose.

Pedestrian Guarding

2.2 Guarding should be provided to the sides of any part of a raised floor, gallery, balcony, roof or any other place to which people have access

Just a though. Visually it might be odd is the the top retaining walls is taller that the others. It might look better is they are equalised. Say there are 3 retaining walls. Rather than 2x500 and 800mm (500+300), that would mean 3x600mm (the top being 300+300mm). Visually equal, level change is 600mm.

As aside, 300mm is a very low seat, so if there was more than 3 levels, could even increased to 400mm high and still equalise over all levels.

Lumen

Thanks Mellor, that makes sense.

In the end I decided to ditch the retaining walls in question except around beds (where people wouldn't be walking), and I might use some big planters in the remaining spots to make the place drunk-safe.

Now I just have to get a load of steps built to deal with the consequences 🤣