Fall Protection

fall protection screen on skylight

What Makes a Skylight Impact Resistant?

OSHA has concluded that skylights must be regarded as a hatchway, i.e., an opening in the roof of a building through which persons may fall. Therefore requires that skylights in the roof of buildings through which persons may fall while walking or working shall be guarded by a standard skylight screen or a fixed standard railing on all exposed sides, capable of withstanding a load of at least 200 lbs.

On the other hand, a plastic skylight which can provide the necessary structural integrity to support the 200 lb. load would not be required to be further safeguarded, since it would meet the intended function of a screen as well.

These skylights are called Impact Resistant Skylights or Fall Protection Skylights and must be put through a series of tests to be labeled as such. There are certain requirements that must be met before passing the test.

Our FS-CM unit skylights have been tested by Construction Consulting Laboratory.

Testing Requirement:
200 lb load dropped into mid-span of dome will cause no glazing disengagement or breakage of glazing material at a minimal force of 775 ft/lbs. Further, the 200 lb. load will be dropped from incremental heights until failure is achieved.

Our skylights exceeded the requirements and testing was stopped at 1000 ft/lbs.

You can view our test results here.