Balcony repair

[chenda]

I have a 3rd floor Juliet balcony constructed of horizontal wooded slats, situated almost directly above a main road. The slats are weathering and by spring will need sanding down and re-staining, but would have to be done from the inside as ladders or scaffolding are not practical or affordable.

This could be done from the inside except that there is a heavy pane of glass, about 1.5 metres wide and 1 metre high, attached to the inside of the balcony, preventing access to the slats. The glass is in turn jammed on each side into a recess on each side of the external elevation of the building, so whilst it can be unscrewed it can't be moved inside.

It looks like its possible to remove the top slate which would allow the glass to be lifted upwards, but the aperture above the balcony would be too small to bring the glass inside. The two options seem to be:

1) Lift up the glass about half way, prop it up somehow to allow access to the lower slats, then get a tall person to lean over and do the upper slats

2) Get a professional to cut out the glass and replace it with a more functional pane

Or is there an third way which I might be missing ?

[chenda]

@ffj yes kind of - you can access the glass itself but its clamped (with that grey thing in the second photo) between the exterior wall and balcony strut. Looking at the clamps again it does not seem possible to unscrew even with an allen key, as there are no screws on the inside facing side. It was probably not meant to be removed; its a really flawed design. Although I am told the previous resident did re-polish the struts somehow from the inside.

[Campitor]

I may be wrong, but it seems that the window was slid into place from the inside then the interior trim was framed in to hold it in place against the exterior trim/frame. I think a carpenter could probably pop out that window from the inside by removing the interior frame and door for you if you lack the tools and skills.

[chenda]

@campitor - unfortunately the glass projects outside beyond the brickwork so it's kind of externally wedged in place.

@ffj - yes the pole sander might work! And stop me decapitating a passing cyclist

Thanks for the suggestions