My opinion on the balcony live load is as follows: In my research on TS498 and on the internet, I could not find any information on what the live load should be taken from balconies over 10m2 in any source. In my opinion, the reason why the live load on balconies up to 10m2 is taken as 500kg/m2 in TS498; 1. On a relatively small balcony of 3 m2, 5 m2, 7 m2 or 10 m2, the household or those who are in the house during a community go out to the balcony altogether and at the same time to watch an event outside (for example, a wedding, fight, etc.). In such a case, 10-12 people can go out to a 4m2 balcony at the same time. You can even find images of balconies that have not been properly manufactured and collapsed in such a case on the internet. 2. The use of such a small balcony as a complete warehouse or as a closet. We have observed this in many houses with balconies in this way. However, as the balcony area grows (more than 10m2 according to the regulation), the probability of the household filling a balcony completely and being crowded with people decreases. In addition, filling such an area with full load and goods is a distant possibility as it does not make it possible to reach the goods at the bottom or the back. For this reason, balconies larger than 10m2 should be considered as normal residential areas and a live load calculation should be made over 200kg/m2. Likewise, if the load had to be increased as the area grew, terraces would not have been mentioned in the 200kg/m2 load class. Because when the word terrace is mentioned, larger areas that serve the same purpose as the balcony come to mind. To summarize; 1. For balconies smaller than 10m2, 500kg/m2 live load should be taken as written in the regulation. 2. 200kg/m2 live load can be taken on balconies larger than 10m2, or 350kg/m2 live load can be taken to stay on the guaranteed side. However, I believe that accepting a live load of 500kg/m2 is incompatible with the engineering approach. For example, accepting 10t live load on a 20m2 balcony is incompatible with reality and the purpose of the balcony. In addition, defining a non-overlapping or missing load for the purpose of use in a space will change the position of the center of mass, may cause the A1 irregularity investigation to be made incorrectly and there will be a possibility of misleading the structure analysis results. Finally, I condemn the sharp-witted regulation writers who divide the balconies into two as smaller and larger than 10m2 and do not give two different figures and force us to make assumptions like this. Isa SAYIN Civil Engineer
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