A high school student with severe autism and sensory needs cannot go outside due to safety issues, in addition family has stated that the student is afraid of stairs due to a fall early in their childhood.
A high school student with severe autism and sensory needs cannot go outside due to safety concerns. The family desires the student to be able to go outside without fear of falling downstairs and without fear of him running or wandering away. Their desired solution is the implementation of a fence for the backyard and railings and a gate provided for the porch. Team 10a is responsible for implementing the fence for the yard, and team 10b (this team) is responsible for implementing the railings for the porch.
Railing Specifications:
Ramp Specifications:
For our research we visited access board.gov for the required specifications and guidelines for both the ramp and the railing. Our goal was to construct a safety railing around the front Poarch of the home that allows the freedom of being outdoors while providing a safe and sturdy structure for the needs of the family. We researched the minimum requirements for the railing and ramp to be able to withstand regular usage and remain within complacence within construction standards. Some design variables we had to consider was material choice for both construction and sensory needs, as well as comfort and general accessibility.
There are many pre-built railings available in aluminum and vinyl that would be suitable for this project. The primary hinderance to implementation of these would be getting the standard lengths to fit adequately to the house if the standard lengths are not able to fit exactly. This can fixed by fabricating custom lengths or posts to made the pre-built railings adequately and securely fit to the house.
The family already confirmed there is no underground power / water lines to worry about while installing the railings for the stairs.
A simple waist height fence with a short ramp at the doorstep followed by a larger ramp replacing the main stairs.
Railing supports added to the side of the stairs with a small, removable ramp for a small step right in front of the house, with a gate to prevent wandering off the porch.
A solid panel railing is recommended for sensory needs as it serves to keep attention away from the surroundings beyond railing.
We selected design two as it scored the highest in affordability and simplicity and best met all the design requirements given to us by the family.
To best match what the family wants, the selected design includes:
The most important aspects of our design are:
Both the railings and the gate need to be at least waist height to prevent falling and wandering. Waist height for a 6′ man is about 41″, so the railings should be about 4 feet tall from the ground to prevent injury.
The family desires the railings are preferred to be made of metal and colored white to match the rest of the porch. This can be accomplished using aluminum or steel railings, but aluminum is typically preferred as it is less likely to rust and lighter to work with. It is typically cheaper to purchase aluminum railing prefabricated due to the need for specialty tools, the manufacture having already tested their product to ensure code compliance, and most importantly to reduce fabrication times.
The railings on the porch itself may be connected to the four columns at the front of the porch, which are wooden with a thin aluminum coating.
Aluminum railings typically come in 6′ or 8′ lengths standard and are expected to be cut to length as needed for most applications. Two 6′ length railings would be sufficient for the right and left side sections of the porch since they are about 5′ each. The front of the porch is a bit more complicated due to the dimensions between the posts. There is approximately 10.76 ft between the outer and inner posts (129″). This is longer than the standard 8′ lengths, so it will be necessary to use fabricate this more custom length using additional railing and cutting and welding techniques. For this application, two 8′ lengths and one 6′ length should suffice.
There is a distance of about 16.2′ between the columns at the center of the porch, in front of the stairs. If a standard 48″ wide gate is chosen this would cover the 4′ stair section adequately, but about 3′ of open space on each side. This would require an additional 6′ railing that could be cut in half.
Each railing kit comes with the required number of brackets (4 for each railing). Cutting one 6′ section to use as two 3′ sections would require more brackets. However, the other 6′ section used to extend the 8′ sections to reach the required 10.76 ft provides the additional brackets needed.
Aluminum railings are typically available in 36″ heights which satisfies most US code requirements, but some prefab options are available in 42″ heights. To maximize safety, these 42″ heights would be preferred.
Posts will be required to provide structural support to the straight and stair railings. These will be bolted into the concrete base of the stairs and porch using fasteners. To provide rails on both sides of the staircase to the porch, two 6′ stair railings and four posts should be sufficient. For the additional separate staircase, two posts and one 6′ stair railing should be sufficient since only one side is open.
Weatherables Aluminum Porch Railing Kit meets these requirements and has the benefit of having compatible hardware of straight rails, stair rails, posts, and brackets included and / or easily accessible to reduce assembly times and to be able to ensure compatibility before ordering.
2. Gate
The gate will be 42″ tall to match the railings’ height.
The gate needs to be able to close on its own in case someone leaves it open. This can be accomplished a few different ways, such as a spring latch to pull the gate closed, or using dedicated self-closing hinges. Therefore, it is preferable to get a gate with self-closing hinges.
The family also desires the gate to be lockable to prevent wandering. There are many locking latches available, with some being operated from one side only or from both. To ensure ease of use, a locking latch accessible from both sides is preferred. D&D Technologies makes a few locking latches that meet these requirements.
Gates come standard in lengths such as 48″, which would be adequate for this application as the stairs themselves are 4′ wide.
For this application, you could have a one-opening or a two-opening gate. A one-opening gate is simpler, easier to implement, has more prefabricated options, and cheaper. A two-opening gate would reduce how far the gate swings out, which may be convenient to make the gate less of an obstacle to someone going up / down the stairs. However, a two-opening gate would be more expensive with more complicated fabrication. A one-opening gate should be sufficient for this application.
Mountwest Building Supplies has a prefab one opening gate that fits these requirements fairly well.
3. Ramp
The ramp must have a slope that is not too steep as to cause danger to those who use it but not have an angle too small as to cause an unnecessarily long ramp that would interfere with the gate and rest of the porch.
The ramp will extend 32.18 inches based on calculations, which for ease of manufacturing we have changed it to a length of 33 inches giving us a slope length of about 34.16 inches, with a fixed height of 8 5/8 inches. There is also a stair cut out that needs to be made to go above a brick step at the door that is 8 inches out from the door and about 4 inches from the base of the porch so the ramp can slide over the brick step.
Some ramps that have been premade have a standard width of 3 feet to 4 feet, based on our measurements the door way is about 39 inches wide so, the ramp will be best if we size it to be the 4 feet wide method and be able to hold roughly 600 lbs of force.
For this application, the ramp will need to be fabricated from wood boards and plywood to create the desired shape. Anti-slip tape will be applied to the ramp to help prevent falling.
The Weatherables railing is advertised as being International Residential Code (IRC) compliant and comes with limited lifetime implementation support.
Due to budget constraints, only the ramp was able to be fabricated this semester. Nathaniel oversaw the design, fabrication, and installation of the ramp while the rest of the group was used to provide extra support Project 10a Security Fence, aiding in the construction of the backyard fence rather working on railings for the porch.
The fabrication work with the other team included utilizing post diggers and a metal bar to dig holes for the main posts to be quick creted. The metal bar was used to loosen the dirt and the post diggers used to remove the loose dirt until the holes were about 20″ deep. Helping the other team also included attaching boards to the posts to build the fence frame and attaching the panels to the frame. This work was primarily done on-site due to the amount of wood, with over 690 panels needing to be installed. For more information on the design and final results of the backyard fence, please see the Project 10a: Security Fence TEK webpage.
The ramp was able to be constructed off site due to its smaller size (compared to a backyard fence). This was done primarily in the Brown Fabrication shop. Brackets for the ramp had to be fabricated by Jeff due to the brackets ordered not being strong enough.
The ramp was tested with two grown men standing on it at the same time, a weight of about 500 lbs. It was also tested walking on it and jumping on it. The ramp is too small to fit more than two people on it at a time, so the testing results of it withstanding up to 500 lbs should be adequate.
For more information on the testing results of the backyard fence, see Project 10a.
In the event the anti-slip tape begins to peel off the wood, the anti-slip tape would need to be replaced. To avoid potential injuries the anti-slip tape should be periodically checked to avoid slipping hazards. The anti-slip tape is very grippy, so to avoid falling users primarily need to walk slowly to maintain their balance.
For more info on the safe use of the backyard fence, see Project 10a.
The initial plan during the design phase was to split the two groups (Project 10a and 10b Security Fence) between one for the porch (10b) and one for the backyard fence (10a). The initial plan to produce an aluminum railing for the porch came out to be overbudget, and the two groups were consolidated to both work on the fabrication of the backyard fence. The initial design work was kept on this page in the event it proves useful to a future team. For this team’s (10b) design, the primary implementation was the ramp with the rest of the remaining manpower and budget going to helping fabricate the fence.
For future plans, if a group were to take on a similar project and budget remains an issue, wooden railing would be cheaper than aluminum (about 1/7 the cost) if acceptable to the customer. For a minimal design, the stair railings remain the critical component missing.
