handrail repair

Is your metal railing starting to become loose and dangerous?

Give us a call or send us an email and we can usually get you an estimate the same day. Wrought iron railing over time will rust and can eventually break. JB Custom Welding has alot of iron working experience and is the right company for you to call to repair your metal handrails.

Why did my railing rust out and become loose?
Most times the posts in the concrete are hollow (aka box tubing) and because they are hollow moisture builds up and the water runs to the bottom of the post and pools up on the concrete inside the post. The moisture build up will literal rust the posts from the inside out.

How are you going to fix my handrails rusted posts?
The best way to repair is to replace the entire post. When we replace the post on a handrail we don't use hollow tubing, instead we use solid bar stock. See the picture that shows the difference. As you can see using solid bar stock there is no where for moisture to build up and thus it wont rust through and create a loose handrail (not in our life time at least). The solid bar stock is much stronger and will stand up to abuse much better than hollow tubing.

How are you going to remove my old handrail from the concrete?
The posts on your rail are sitting 4 inches into the concrete. The only way to replace a post on the rail is to remove the whole rail which means we have to cut every post including posts that may not feel loose (though if some posts are loose the others are usually not far behind). We will use metal cutting tools to cut the old posts and remove the whole handrail.

How do you put the rail back into the concrete?
Once the entire rail is removed from the steps we then cut out all of the old hollow posts from that rail, we cut to fit and weld in the new solid bar stock into the railing. Each post is painted. While the rail is out of the concrete we core drill the concrete to remove the 4 inch stub remains of the original rail and to make a hole for the new posts to sit in. Once the new rail is aligned into the concrete we mix and pour hydraulic cement. The cement hardens in about 30 minutes. The cement give a super strong bond to the wrought iron.

Is there an easier way to repair my wrought iron rail?
Short answer is no. If you want your railing repaired the right way, that will last a life time, this is the way to do. By replacing the hollow posts with solid it fixes the core issue of moisture building up inside the post. We have seen people try all sorts of ways to fix a loose handrail such as epoxy, duck tape, little angle brackets with tapcons (and box nails), straps, rope etc. These methods hardly work at all and if they do its temporary.

Why doesn't everyone repair the rails this way?
The bottom line is the equipment to do this type of repair isn't cheap and isn't something your typical homeowner or handyman would have. You need a heavy duty welder to penetrate the solid 1 inch bar stock (and you need to know how to weld), you need a nice core drill that won't break your wrist if it goes mis-aligned from the concrete, and you need steel cutting equipment.

Bottom line:
If you want this problem to go away forever just contact us and we'll take care of it. We repair wrought iron railing throughout Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William, Arlington, and Alexandria counties.