Understand Glide-On Balconies

Although a lot more elegant, Glide-On™ Cassette® balconies are like a forklift lifting a pallet, it’s that simple.

What are cantilever/projecting balconies?

Projecting balconies, often known as ‘cantilever balconies’, are essentially platforms added to a building which cantilever off of the main building structure and allow residents to step out onto a platform protected by a perimeter balustrade.

Traditionally the choices were; steel framed bolt-on balconies  or concrete balconies. Sapphire’s Rapidly installed, Rigid Glide-On balconies have fast saturated the market place as the balcony of choice.

What are Glide-On balconies?

Because of their simplistic yet innovative approach, Glide-on balconies are rapidly replacing traditional steel bolt-on balconies.

The first part is the bracketry which can be chosen from a range of cast-in or post-fixed brackets to enable the connection to the main building structure or floor slab, each with steel arms protruding from the façade. The balcony Cassette® (the frame structure and balustrade) is a deck made with oversized holes to receive the steel arms when the Cassette® is craned into position. Each Cassette® is delivered preassembled and factory finished to a high-quality standard with minimal on-site finishing.

Offsite manufactured

Offsite manufacturing avoids the hassle of coordinating multiple trades and site storage of materials as balconies are stored offsite preassembled and delivered when required.

MMC may be the key to the woes of the housing shortage as well as the cost engineering requirements of developers, if it is used to its fullest potential.

Offsite balconies reduce time, costs and risk while increasing quality assurance and minimising site storage.

Premium Quality

Factory controlled stage by stage quality processes ensure a premium offering. Our increased balcony quality control means only quality balconies get Passports!

Passport provides a complete traceable history on each balcony, and the design of it is such that the next checklist cannot be completed until the prior one has been completed. This gives assurance that every balcony has gone through the complete QC process, so that every balcony can be delivered ‘Right’,

Lightweight

Aluminium Cassette® balcony decks are approximately half the weight of steel which can reduce the number of brackets required to connect back to the main structure. This reduces the number of façade penetrations reducing the risk of cold bridging, damp etc. which bring both additional costs and hassle.

Discreet fixings

Sapphire Cassette® balconies have been carefully engineered to avoid visible welds and keep fixings discreet. All Cassettes® come with soffits which complete the underside.

Stronger, more rigid

We have developed specialist cast-in anchors which can achieve three times the strength of common market alternatives. This means less deflection and increased rigidity, giving the best resident experience and product confidence.

Always fit

We provide templates with cast-in anchors. These avoid RC frame casting issues, so that balconies fit the first time. This way we avoid the traditional bolt-on balconies misalignment issues, which cause coordination issues and variations.