Child-safe screens for upstairs rooms

The brief

The two-storey home sits on a larger block in Upper Coomera, with three bedrooms and a rumpus room upstairs. The builder had fitted restrictors to the upstairs sliding windows, which stopped them opening more than a hand-width. On hot nights there was almost no breeze, and the family had started overriding the restrictors, which worried them.

They wanted the windows to open fully for the breeze, without the risk of a child pushing out a fly screen and falling.

What we fitted

At the measure we checked each window, the sill heights and the drop outside. We recommended child-safe security screens in 316 stainless mesh with black frames, fixed over the six upstairs windows so they cannot be pushed out or removed without a tool. With the screens in place, the restrictors are no longer needed and the windows can open fully.

We checked the specification against the NCC openable-window requirements before ordering: no gap a 125 mm sphere can pass through, and a screen and fixings that resist the outward force set out in the code. We also talked through emergency escape, and fitted the main bedroom screen with an escape release that opens from inside without a key and is designed to be hard for small children to operate.

Every window is measured on site, with the sill height and the drop outside noted.

Stainless mesh and the frame fixings up close.

On the day

The screens were fitted three weeks after the measure. The six windows took the crew most of a morning, working room by room so the kids' rooms were back in order before nap time.

Before leaving, they showed both parents how the escape release in the main bedroom works, and how to rinse the mesh every few months.

The result

The upstairs windows now open all the way on summer nights, and the breeze runs through the bedrooms and down the stairs.