A question for you railing guys

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Hello all!I've been a long time lurker and have marveled at the skills that a lot of you guys posess.I've been a hobby welder for a few years, mainly small fixes and fabrications.  Well I'm embarking on my first hand railing project.  Nothing too extreme, just a right angle with one step down.  Now to my question.......The porch is basically a 5' by 5' concrete slab about 18 inches off the ground.  From the house out, the slab has about 2+ inches of fall and from the step to the other side there is about 1 inch of fall to the 2 inch corner.  For the lower horizontal part of the railing I understand that it should have a maximum 4" spacing.  How should I maintain this space with so much fall on the slab?  Do you normally keep the hand rail level and slope the bottom with the slab?  Making every baluster a different size?  Because if you kept it level you would be 2" off the slab at one end and 4" at the other.  Any ideas that you could offer me would be greatly appreciated.Chris
Reply:I'm only a hobby welder who works for a construction company...that being said,I would keep the top level and slope the bottom (like you said)It would just look better.
Reply:Is this for your place or someone else? Personally, if it was mine, I'd make the rail square and hide the difference in the bottom making sure you don't exceed the 4". Cutting the balusters at a different length can be tedious. Then again, if it's for someone else, ask them what would be their preference.Face it, 2" of fall in 5ft is somewhat drastic and will cause something to look awry.
Reply:Top rail usually follows the drop of the land.  The bottom rail should be parallel to the top.If you do want to go level with the top, just make sure that you're gap at the bottom doesn't get bigger than 4".  (It usually looks kinda hokey like this though).Can you skip the bottom rail altogether?Buy American, or don't whine when you end up on the bread line.
Reply:The railing is for my sister-in-law. I'd perfer to have the bottom rail, so I'm thinking that I'm going to try to follow the lay of the land.  Might fudge it a bit to keep the asthetics clean, since the fall of the porch is so drastic.My steel order is due to arrive any day now, hope to get started by the weekend and maybe post a few post a few pict in the project thread. Thanks for all who replied with their ideas.Chris
Reply:Is this a house or a trailer?Each step has to be 9 inches.If the concrete slab is 18 inches high you will have only one step.What I would do is attach boards 2 inches thick to the top of theslab then put the step in the middle and then each rise will be exactly 9 inches.That way you will not have the 2 inch difference which people can trip on and it is not to code.Also it will look better with a wood step and a matching wood cover on top of the concrete slab.Then build the railing.We really need a photo.Last edited by Donald Branscom; 05-26-2011 at 10:46 AM.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:Just a thought but why not pour a leveling slab on top of the existing one?You can get fiber mesh concrete that at 1" thick is plenty strong for foot traffic, expecially when it is on top of another slab. On a 5x5' it would require less than 10 cubic feet of concrete. Id use some of that composite 2x6 that will never rot, wrap it in masking tape and use it to form up the porch, then when the concrete had cured id pull the tape and you would have a really nice border around the porch that would hide the seam in the concrete.I would also plan on having about 1/2" run off away from the house in that 5'
Reply:If it's only 18" off the ground then you wouldn't have to worry with the 4" code.