In the current economic climate we all want more for less money. A juliet balcony is often the last part of a building project that has often over run the original budget. So spending less on a balcony than was originally planned is often a way to claw back a few pounds from the over spend. With no real way to reduce the time it takes to make our current Juliet balcony railings without compromising on quality. Its take a major redesign of how we make them, but taking extreme care not to compromise on how they are fixed with the multipoint fixing. Single point fixing like some of our competitors use was never going to happen despite it saving time and materials. That part is a safety issue and never up for change.
In short going back the drawing board, and thinking what is a juliet balcony. Essentially a railing covering a pair of French style doors with a suitable fixing to the wall to make sure it stays securely fixed. So what if was just a railing like a wall railing with no corner returns. As much as the mitred corners look nice and would certainly be my own personal choice, Its also one of the things that takes time to do. If i use a modified version of the fixing employed on our tile hung balcony fixing. Welded rather than bolted, i now have a considerable time saving,
if the bars are spaced at 102mm centres, i can make a spacing jig saving even more time. And with a constant gap of 90mm between bars. which means i can produce 90mm wide parts to fit between the gaps, allowing for multiple designs easier to produce than my current method. Now looking at some serious labour saving on a 6ft balcony. Which i can pass onto you the customer. Estimate price for a basic 6ft wide balcony railing £250, made and painted Black. yes Satin black is also going to be the only option.
This configuration will still use the contoured handrail that i use on all my current balconies, but i do have plans to make an economy, economy version that uses flat bar for both top and bottom. The contoured hand rail is over twice the price of flat bar. Just the saving on swapping the contoured bar for flat bar is nearly £15 in material content. so the ultra economy version is likely to run out at £235 for a 6ft balcony. So a big jump down in price from the current cheapest version at 6ft long which is £320.
If you are interest will need to email for more details but will have photos of working versions soon.