Don’t Bypass The Railings!

I regularly drive around different sections of town to see what homeowners are doing to spice up their homes. Now, the term “spicing up” can mean so many different things, from planting flowers or shrubs to sprucing up the color to an already-pretty house, painting or re-siding or stuccoing the outside of the house (today stucco comes in a wonderful assortment of different colors and shades).

Sometimes it’s just a series of replacement windows, and other times it’s the whole house, which can change the look of the entire house in addition to creating an energy-saving feature which saves heaps of money in both heating in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer.

Then there are all the masonry repairs and replacement renovations: new entry porches or stoops, replacement brick, cement, or stone staircases, driveways, walkways, or even patios. Sometimes, if a backyard is large enough, it’s not unusual to see a full basketball court all ready for a spontaneous game. Usually when I see a basketball court, I realize this household has kids who are very into playing basketball and the court will get lots of use!

All of these renovations I just mentioned are very common to be seen throughout town, but recently something a little different has caught my eye, and I thought I would discuss it in the interests of public safety and accident prevention.

Some people decide to be creative when replacing a walkway and create a slant, in a format similar to a partial ramp, probably figuring that by utilizing this technique, they are limiting the number of steps potentially needed to go up to their home. The slant effectively creates a gradual ramp and by utilizing this technique, it does in fact save on the number of steps possibly needed to climb up to the front door. Great idea, but what about the safety rails?

Although this idea by itself is a great one, some homeowners are busy with the walkway design of the slant and are creating a stone-facing design along the sides of the walkway rather than filling the depression with dirt to meet the walkway. This design effect may be lovely to look at, but the homeowner has not taken into account that having a drop on either side of the walkway, even a drop of only several inches, has invited the possibility of someone accidentally tripping or stepping over the side of the walkway and rather than meeting with soil graded to meet the edge of the walkway, their foot ends up in that space of several inches, the same as someone falling into a ditch.

Now, this is also an issue when making any changes to a walkway or to steps of any kind, and should be seriously considered as part of any project of this kind.

Since there are no bannisters or railings, there is no guide to where the walkway ends, and a drop is present on either side, so with a misstep, a person can be possibly injured.

During the day, it may be easier to watch where you are going, but certainly at night when it’s dark, or when it rains or particularly when it snows and the walkway as well as the drop on both sides of the walkway are hidden, this is an accident waiting to happen.

Now I also must mention that I noticed that this design is not only being utilized in creating new walkways, but also by homeowners creating new driveway designs with the stone facings alongside the new driveway with that save several inches drop on the sides, and the grass or soil only beginning at the bottom of that drop.

That same situation holds true with a driveway design such as this where someone can inadvertently misstep and fall over the edge of this driveway into the drop and be injured, but additionally, if the homeowner or someone else driving their car into the driveway misses the edge of the driveway by accident, the wheel of the car can fall into that drop on the side of the driveway and not only can the driver be injured, but also the passengers, and the car can be damaged as well.

Sometimes just looking pretty is not good enough. When you start designing whatever potential renovations you are going to create to spruce up your home, please keep in mind any potential safety issues. If a pretty design also becomes a safety hazard, it defeats the objective! n

Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) with over 20 years of experience offering residential, commercial and management real estate services. You are invited to visit her website at AVCRrealty.com. She can be reached at 516-569-5007. Readers are encouraged to send any questions or comments by email to [email protected].