Making the best use of your outdoor and public space is set to be a legacy of the pandemic, with renewed focus on providing customers and employees with attractive all-weather outdoor areas for eating, socialising, taking breaks, holding meetings and even exercising.

The vast majority of these spaces are paved, tiled or decked and supported by a hidden substructure system of pedestals which must be robust enough to withstand the loads placed upon them to ensure the safety of users. This is especially important if designers expect heavy traffic and/or are placing planters, art or heavy furniture on the suspended surface, or the spaces are at-height. Designers also need flexibility in their support systems, whether dealing with falls and interruptions in the deck surface or handling different surface finishes such as paving or decking.

Wallbarn is one of the UK’s leading pedestal manufacturer. Safety and performance are their top priority and they've invested in developing a portfolio of pedestals suitable for almost any installation, including those requiring Class A1 fire rating.

Mega Balance, mega performance

Its new Mega Balance is a self-levelling heavy duty pedestal designed for paved, tiled or decked areas subjected to heavy loads - each pedestal can withstand 2 tonnes, making it a safe, secure choice for public spaces. Mega Balance has been designed with a number of key features to make installation quicker and ensure a completely flat finished surface:

Self-levelling headpiece

- automatically accommodates variations in the deck surface. It comprises four separate parts to allow up to a 5% or 2.86° slope correction in all directions.

- can be locked using our specially designed grey nut tool to create a rigid headpiece, allowing differences in installation requirements across a project to be accommodated with the same pedestal system.

- fins on the headpiece allow precise location of paving slabs and even spacing for drainage and roof deck ventilation. This creates a uniform paving line and rainwater can run between and under the slabs or decking so there’s no standing water on the surface to create a health and safety hazard.

Height adjustment

- the telescopic stem accommodates 25mm to 1025mm, allowing Mega Balance to be used throughout projects with wide-ranging height variations.
- Mega Balance can be hand-adjusted by twisting the stem whilst tile/decking joists are in-situ.

- Our ‘yellow key’ system adjusts pedestal height post-installation without the need to lift tiles or paving. If the tiles rock after a installation, rather than lift four separate tiles to access one pedestal, users can insert the Yellow Key into the centre of the Mega Balance headpiece to twist the stem up or down marginally. This is a major labour saving benefit and improves health & safety aspects on site.

Additional features

- Rubber anti-shock pads slot onto the headpiece to give better grip to the slab and help insulate against vibration and noise travelling through the pedestal to the deck beneath.

- Mega Balance is injection moulded from virgin fibre polypropylene to be robust, durable and long-lasting at temperatures ranging from +75°C to -40°C. It will not become brittle in cold weather.

- 200mm diameter base plate ensures effective weight distribution when paving/decking onto surfaces such as waterproofing membranes and insulation.

- Fins running from the stem to the edge of the baseplate guard against point loading down the central column. Weight is effectively distributed and point loading prevented. The base can be trimmed back for edges and corners without load-bearing being affected.

Mega Balances also offers different headpiece fittings for different jobs:

- A special joist holder fitting to hold timber/composite joists for decking applications

- The Mega Balance Clip Head fits Wallbarn’s special profiled aluminium joist to create a secure connection without the need for mechanical fixings. The runner connectors mean movement is allowed, preventing stress points and cracking.

- Coming soon is the ‘cross rail’, the improved comprehensive substructure system for decking and tile applications.

Designers and installers can also make use of Wallbarn’s free Mega Pro software design tool, which produces a colour-coded laying pattern detailing the correct height and position for each pedestal. From this Wallbarn can provide a cost estimation and quantity schedule with ordering codes.

With Wallbarn pedestals (self-levelling, adjustable, fixed height, mini height and heavy duty) users can be assured of precision-fit, stunning finishes supported by superior quality, technically proven and established products specifically designed for exterior use with no mechanical fixings required. All Wallbarn systems are certified by an independent laboratory to ensure they perform to stated weight and temperature tolerances and investment in the product at specification stage is recouped from on-site time and labour savings.

Conclusion

Mega Balance incorporates an ultra heavy duty pedestal with a self-levelling or rigid headpiece. It is future-proofed for retrospective adjustments and offers a range of different connection headpieces for different applications. It is truly the future of suspended deck design.