What makes an aluminium pool fence compliant: height, non climbable spacing, gates, and the gaps council checks.
A pool fence has one job before it has any other: to pass inspection and keep a small child out. AS 1926.1 sets how. A vertical aluminium barrier meets it without walling the pool in.
The barrier must be at least 1200 mm from the finished ground. We build 1250 mm as standard on our Batten style, so there is margin above the minimum. On a sloping site the height is measured on the outside, where a child would climb, and we set it to the finished ground rather than to a nominal level.
Vertical members are the point. There is nothing horizontal at mid height to use as a foothold, which is exactly what a climbing child looks for. Spacing is set so no gap exceeds 100 mm and the non climbable zone stays clear.
The gate does most of the failing on a non compliant fence. It must be self closing and self latching from any position it is left in, open outward away from the pool, and latch high enough to be out of a child’s reach. We supply pool gates with hardware rated for that duty. See pool fence gates and latches.
The first four are things the barrier itself has to be, and we build every pool fence to meet them. The last one is about what ends up standing next to the fence: a pot plant, an air conditioning unit, a pool pump, a retaining wall, a stack of pavers left over from the build. It is the easiest of the five to fix and the easiest to forget, so walk the perimeter before your inspection.
WA requires four sided isolation fencing around a private pool, so the barrier separates the pool from the house as well as from the street. Local governments inspect barriers on a rolling cycle. Your building surveyor and inspector have the final say on the installed barrier, and we supply the paperwork a certifier asks for.
A curved section holds the same spacing, height and hardware as a straight run, so following a pool edge does not cost you compliance. Curved sections meet AS 1926.1.
Book the inspection with confidence. Every AFS pool fence is built to meet these checks, and we can supply the compliance paperwork a certifier asks for.
This guide covers pool fencing.
