Installation of French balconies in front of floor-to-ceiling windows

Hello everyone!

I live in Lower Saxony and own a single-family house built in 2017. Upstairs there are four floor-to-ceiling windows. French balconies are installed as fall protection. Since I do not like the look of the French balconies, I would like to replace them/have them replaced. While looking for a replacement, a metalworker pointed out to me that the anchoring of the balconies must always be done in the actual masonry (in my case Poroton). Installation only in the facing brick (clinker) would be impermissible. Is that correct? Would all balconies that are anchored only in the clinker facade or in the window reveal (also still facing brick) be impermissible? Is there, for example, a DIN standard that precisely describes how the fastening should be done?

Thank you very much and best regards! Peter

Mandatory requirement? No idea. Only on the [Klinker]? Dumb idea; if a drunk adult leans hard against it, they’ll be on the ground floor and you’ll be missing a piece of facade.

Well, you don't need any standard for that, the brick facade is not load-bearing according to calculations, so nothing can be anchored to it. It's basically the Siemens air hook principle.

Thank you Nordanney and thank you Lumpi_LE for your quick responses!

Yes, I had already thought something along those lines, but you see such solutions so often. Some homeowners even have only one or two horizontally running rods/pipes in the reveal – that is, from "facing brick to facing brick"... how can that be? Are all regulations ignored here (not to mention the railing heights, spacing of the bars, etc.) or do these not even exist? So, are there no regulations stating that the fastenings must withstand at least force X, that special wall anchors must be used, or that the fastenings must be inspected by TÜV or someone else, etc.?

Sometimes you cannot see the anchoring to the masonry at all. For example, you can drill through to the masonry or use a flat anchor for the [Klinker].

That may of course be the case, I hadn’t thought that far. I will simply focus on one solution that reaches the load-bearing masonry - and that’s it.

Thank you again!