Framed and frameless glass balustrades, metal balustrades, railings and gates, and handrails both wall mounted and on posts, in stainless steel, hot dip galvanised steel or powdercoated steel. Priced by the metre with prices published online, made to your sizes in our Sheffield workshop and supplied UK wide. The fittings, components and cut to size glass are further down the page.
Almost every balustrade decision comes down to how much you want to see the structure, and how much you want to spend.
Framed glass is posts at intervals with a handrail across the top and glass filling the gaps. It is the workhorse: the cheapest way to get a compliant glass balustrade, the most forgiving to fit because the posts do the structural work, and the easiest to install yourself. If a pane is ever damaged it is a panel swap rather than a rebuild. This is our System 1 through System 10.
Frameless glass removes the posts entirely, so the glass itself is the barrier and the fixings are hidden in a channel, a spigot or a side bracket. It costs more, the glass is thicker and laminated, and the fixing has to be right because there is nothing else holding it. In return you get an uninterrupted view, which is the whole point on a balcony or a terrace.
Metal infill means no glass at all: vertical bars, ornate scrollwork or tensioned stainless wire rope between posts. Cheaper than glass, nothing to clean, nothing to break, and the right answer where a view is not the priority or where glass would look wrong on an older building.
A handrail is the other half of this category and it is a different job from a balustrade. A balustrade stops you falling; a handrail gives you something to hold. Plenty of places need one and not the other, and a flight of steps up to a front door is the usual example: nothing to fall off, but a rail makes it safe to use in the wet and in the dark.
Grade matters outside. We use 316 stainless on anything external as standard, which is the marine grade, and 304 only indoors. Galvanised and powdercoated steel is the alternative where you want a colour rather than a metal finish.
Heights, when a rail is actually required, grip and diameter, and the rules for ramps are all in our handrail building regulations guide. Curved, raked and cranked rails are made to measure and quoted individually: see the curved handrail guide.
A balustrade becomes a legal requirement once there is a drop of more than 600mm. From there, the number most people need is the height. 1100mm high is standard for an external balcony, terrace or roof edge; 900mm is the figure for stairs, landings, ramps and internal floor edges in a house. In a commercial or public building the stairs stay at 900mm and everything else goes to 1100mm.
A handrail is a separate requirement with its own heights, generally 900mm to 1000mm above the pitch line of a flight, and a ramp usually wants one on both sides. Our glass balustrade building regulations guide covers all of it in plain English, and the buying guide walks through the range.
Published prices, which is unusual in this trade. You choose the total length of your run to the nearest metre and the number of corners, and the price is on screen. A run measuring 3.75 metres is ordered as 4 metres, and we then make it at 3.75 metres: the band sets the price, not the size. Nothing is a standard length.
Everything here is made in our own workshop. We supply as a self install kit or fit it nationwide, and we offer a chargeable site survey if you would rather we took the sizes.
Everything further down this page is the parts rather than the systems: glass clamps, spigots, posts, handrail tube, connectors and end caps, brackets, base fittings, key clamp fittings and the fixings that hold it all together, plus toughened glass infill panels cut to your sizes.
They are here for two reasons. If you are building a balustrade yourself, this is where the pieces come from. If you are repairing one, a cracked pane or a seized clamp is a part rather than a new balustrade, and it is usually a job you can do yourself. If you are not sure which part you have, email us a photo and we will tell you what it is.
Heights, toughened or laminated glass, what you can safely fix to, stainless grades and what building control will ask for are all answered briefly on our glass balustrade FAQs.
Skip this unless you are specifying the job, or it is going in front of building control.
This is made to order in our own Sheffield workshop, so it can just as easily be made to your dimensions instead. Send a photo and rough sizes and we will price it.
