Strength of Temporary Wooden Guardrails Installed on Open Joists and Prefabricated Walls

Abstract

Guardrails are an efficient way to protect construction workers against falls from height. For residential construction, job-built wooden guardrails are quite common. This article investigates the strength of temporary wooden guardrails attached to open joists or prefabricated walls. More than 350 laboratory strength tests were performed on wooden guardrail systems installed on open joists and prefabricated walls. Besides the type of fastening hardware used, the influence of the position and number of nails and screws were also taken into consideration, as well as the number of spans of the guardrail system and the location of the loading point on the top rail. Results show that larger open joists generally offer a higher strength and that wood screws and straight nails reinforced with a corner bracket are the best fixture type for the posts. The critical configuration is when the load is applied directly on the vertical post.