Does a screen constitute a guard

[mtCDCcb]

We are building a screened in porch. There are portions of the porch that are screened within 36" of the ground surface. Does the mesh screening meet the requirements for guards?

[Jerry Peck - Codeman]

No, you will need to install a proper guard either inside or outside the screen enclosure, typically, the choice is to install the guard in the screen enclosure between the chair rail and the bottom rail, however, without the forethought of doing that, many chair rails are installed too low to meet the required height of the guard, which means another chair rail needs to be installed above the existing one.

The openings in the guard between the vertical balusters you would install must be small enough so as to not allow a 4" sphere to pass through, which means the vertical balusters should not be flimsy skinny tubes - if they are they will deflect out of the way and allow the 4" sphere to pass through.

The guard in-fill (the vertical baluster part filling in the space between the top rail and bottom rail of the guard is the "in-fill") needs to resist a 50 pound horizontally applied load. Basically, try to push the 4" sphere through the opening with 50 pounds of force, the guard in-fill should not allow you to do that.