Hand rail installation

[CalRed]

I need to have a hand rail installed on the deck of my in ground swimming pool. It will require drilling and mounting the rail either both mounts on the deck or one on the deck and the other on a lower step. I haven't am trying to figure out which one will be best. I will probably not use stainless steel because of the grounding problem. More than likely a non-conductive rail.

In order to install the bronze mounting brackets I would have to drill a much larger hole. From the pictures I am able to find on the net it seems that the brackets would require a very large hole. On one of the installation videos on the net, a professional is showing how he installs them, though very limited in all he does, and it seems he drills about a 2½ to 3 inch hole and then uses either Epcon or a commercial grade epoxy or it could even be a special type concrete to mount the railing directly into the holes. I would assume he also fills the inside of the railing in the deck with the epoxy. It is obvious there are no brackets used.

Has anyone had any experience installing a hand rail this way? Will it be nice and firm; tight and present no "wiggle" or movement when grabbed? Of course there would be an escutcheon over the hole and it would not be seen.

Having mounted bolts into concrete many times with Epcon I know how strong it sets. I remounted my diving board that way when the original bolts rusted.(no SS used there)

Any advice from someone who knows will be greatly appreciated. I don't want to have to take up a large area of deck and redo it.

Thanks, Cal R.

 

[duraleigh]

My assumption is this is concrete decking, right?

 

[JasonLion]

When my ladder anchors were replaced, they drilled out the old anchors with a 3" or 4" core drill and then poured concrete around the new anchors. It all looked easy enough, except that mine had to be bonded which meant cutting a slot for the bonding wire with a circular saw and having some idea of where to connect the other end of the wire.

 

[CalRed]

My assumption is this is concrete decking, right?

Yes it is concrete decking.

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

We used a 4" core drill, like Jason mentioned to remove or install anchors in the decks. We used hydrolic cement to set the anchors. If you want, and you should do it, bond the anchors to the reinforcing steel in the deck. I'd go with the deck mounted rail ('dinosaur head' or 'figure 4') so you don't have to drain the pool to mount the other cup on the step.

It'd be a good idea to chip out the bottom of the holes so that the hydrolic cement is wider at the bottom than it would be if it were just a column, and will allow you to put a bonding lug on the steel.