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December 30, 2009

How do landing balustrade kits work with kit staircases?

When you construct any staircase either a straight flight stair or a spiral stair, it will normally have to pass through an aperture in the upper floor. This aperture will need protection around it to prevent users falling through the hole. This is normally done with either walls or landing balustrading.

The landing balustrading will generally be of the same construction as the stair balustrading. Nearly all kit staircases have matching landing balustrading available that is supplied as an extra to the basic kit and is sold in a standard kit length say 1000mmm or 1200mm. These kits have to be sold as an extra because it is not possible to predict the size of aperture, so including a set length in the stair kit would never work. In my experience people tend to under estimate the amount and the cost of landing balustrading, thinking they will save money and sort that out later.

In reality both stair and landing balustrading are costly and important elements which should not be overlooked in the original budget. Typical kit staircase balustrading will cost approx £100 per metre, and to go all the way around the circular aperture of say a 1600mm diameter spiral stair you will need approx 4000mm of landing balustrading (this excludes the stepping off point).

Therefore you will need to spend approx £ 400 on top of a typical £ 1500 spiral stair kit, not a small sum! It is also doubtful that there is much of a saving to be made by buying in standard timber balustrade elements from any of the DIY stores. In my experience when you add up the cost of the elements that are needed you will find a similar cost to the matching kit supplied by the stair manufacturer.

The moral is that stair balustrading is not that cheap. So how do these kits work? The answer is not that complicated, you first have to establish the overall length that you need, and simple purchase enough kits to cover that length. Most manufacturers include all the parts that you need in each kit to make up any shape that you want (check before you buy that your manufacturer does this). So each kit will include for instance

  1. A handrail joining element that allows you to join standard handrail lengths (usually 1200mm. Long) into one continuous length.
  2. A handrail elbow, allowing you to join two lengths of handrail at 90 degrees.
  3. A wall fixing allowing you to attach the balustrade to a wall.
  4. A reaction bar, which is a bow shaped element that gives balustrading stability in longer runs.

Add to this the facts that you can cut to length the handrail to suit any length and that you can order kits for round or square aperture shapes plus join landing balustrade onto stair balustrade and there is very little that you cannot achieve with a well designed balustrade kit.

A serious word of warning, kit balustrading does not have newel posts. A newel post is the vertical solid post that you see on traditional stairs that give the balustrade rigidity. This important topic is discussed in another blog ‘What are newel posts for’.

The Staircase Doctor.

December 23, 2009

Will a space saver staircase work with the doors on my landing?

A question that is asked all the while these days, when everyone is trying to utilise all that wasted space in the loft. The big problem is not having the loft space but getting up to it. This is particularly the case in smaller Victorian terrace style house where landing space is at a premium. You will find that I have dealt with ‘ putting space saver stairs over the house stair’ in a previous blog, so this blog goes on to cover situations where that is a non starter.

Trying to put any stair on a small landing is difficult, and even with a space saver stair like say the Karina it is far from certain that you will have the room. Lets look at some dimensions, a typical space saver stair kit will require just a small floor area of approx 1550mm long by 600mm wide. However 600mm is a lot to take out of a typical terrace landing width which will probably about 1200mm. wide. So if you have to walk past the space saving stair on the landing it will only leave a 600mm clear walkway. Not a lot, particularly if you are of the well built variety of Homo erectus.

Let us assume you have the basic width to accommodate yourself and the space saver staircase on the landing, now the problem is, are the doors in the way? This is the basic question to be answered by this blog. I have lost count of the number of people who have come to me with ideas for using a space saver stair that they can just fit in providing you can access a bedroom door beneath it. In the vast majority of cases this is simple not possible, although some people find this difficult to believe, ‘there is loads of space above the door’ is the cry.

The answer as to why not, is all maths I am afraid, so try to stick with me.

  1. A typical floor-to floor height is say 2750mm (9 ft)
  2. The top tread of a space saver stair starts one step down from the upper floor at approx 2550mm
  3. The steel work supporting that space saver stair tread projects down another 450mm so it is 2550-450 =2100mm from the lower floor to the underside of the steel support.
  4. A door is approx 1980mm high so from the top of the door to the underside of steel for the top tread you only have 120mm (5”) clearance.
  5. Each tread moves down say another 200mm (8”) approx so the underside of steelwork to floor for the next tread down will be 1780, that means it will project down over the doorway by 80mm (3”)

So in a typical situation you can only have the doorway under the very top tread of the space saver stair over the doorway, which is not a lot of stair.

In most typical terrace or semi-detached houses you will only get a space saving stair up to the loft if you can put it over the main house stair or you move walls around to create more space on your landing. There are exceptions and some house designs are perfect for a landing space saver stair, but make sure you talk to ‘a man who knows’ before put the snooker table in your new loft games room.

The Staircase Doctor.

December 17, 2009

What are newel posts for and why are they not used on kit stairs?

Traditional timber staircase construction uses newel posts at each end of a run of balustrade (banister) to give rigidity to the balustrade. You will see them at the bottom and top of just about any domestic stair in the UK. They work just like garden fence posts whose job it is to give stability to the fence panels between posts.

As you already know fence posts work because they are built into the ground, and this gives stability to the exposed part of the post. Newel posts work on the same principal. If you look you will see that the bottom newel at the foot of the stair is fixed in at least two places to the timber side support to the treads (the stringer).

The top newel post is extended through the entire depth of the floor joists, to which it is securely fixed (it may also be fixed to the stringer) On long flights of stairs or long runs of landing balustrading you will find intermediate newel posts to give extra support. In modern metal and wood kit staircase construction newel posts are excluded because there are usually no stringers on the staircase to attach the newel posts to.

Also as the upper floor construction is an unknown factor to the kit stair manufacturer it is difficult to design and include newel posts to suit. The kits are also designed to be capable of retro fitting to existing structures, where disturbing the structure to fit newel posts is undesirable. Rigidity is gained in this type kit stair by designing stairs balusters (the vertical spindles) so that they go through the front of at least two treads which creates the same sort of stability as a newel post fixed to a stringer.

With landing balustrade (around the aperture on the upper floor) rigidity is created by joining runs of balustrade where they turn corners, such as connecting the landing balustrade to the stair balustrade, the 90-degree turn giving it a natural rigidity. With long straight runs of landing balustrade (over 1000mm long) an element called a reaction bar or baluster stiffener is supplied and fixed at 1000mm centres. This is a bow shaped bar that is fastened to both the floor and the vertical baluster to give extra rigidity.

I cannot over emphasize the need to carefully consider the landing balustrading when you are planning a new staircase; it tends to be an after thought in most peoples mind. That is a mistake, wobbly balustrading spoils the effect of your new staircase and is a definite health hazard, not to mention against the Building Regulations. Despite the current trend to the clean open minimalist look that is all the rage these days, I favour the traditional solutions when it comes to landing balustrading. This is probably something to do with the fact that I am an old codger but I do not care, I put safety over looks.

Personally if I had long runs of landing balustrading, say along the front edge of a gallery or bed loft, I would use a combination of traditional timber newel posts between which I would use the matching balusters and handrail supplied by the kit staircase manufacturer. You would need to supply the newel posts yourself, but I think the combination provides the best rigidity without spoiling the looks.

There are some excellent off the shelf newel post systems available from companies such as Richard Burbidge Ltd. Again my personal taste are for more modern simple plain newel posts over the traditional fancy turned newels, I think these look better with modern kit staircases. There are down sides to my ideas, you have to think well ahead and consider the position of the newels at the time that you are constructing the aperture, but I think the effort is worth it.

The Staircase Doctor.

December 07, 2009

What size hole in the ceiling do I need for a kit spiral stair?

A question that I am asked every day. A reasonable question really, because the answer is not obvious to someone who is not familiar with the workings of spiral staircases. The answer is simply 'a little bigger than the spiral'.

A lot of people ask this question because they are trying to cram a quart into a pint pot, which in practice is not feasible. You need to maintain headroom as you ascend the spiral stair, and if you have a ceiling above you, you will hit you head on it at some point. The simple solution is to make sure that you have no ceiling above any of the spiral stair treads, then it cannot go wrong with head height clearance.

It is technically possible with a non standard landing to design a spiral staircase with an aperture that is less than the diameter of the spiral, but it is a specialist field and only really available on made-to-measure spiral stairs. Trust me it is not a thing you want to play around with, if you cannot afford the space on the upper floor for a full size aperture for a spiral stair, then look for an alternative staircase.

So to be specific with sizes, the rule of thumb is that the aperture for any spiral stair in the upper floor should be the diameter of the stair plus 50mm. (2").

Therefore a 1600mm diameter spiral staircase will require a hole in the ceiling of 1650mm. diameter for a round hole, or a square hole will need sides 1650mm long.

'Why the extra 50mm' I hear you cry? The reason is that typically the outermost part of a spiral staircase is the handrail, and the handrail will therefore touch the edge of the hole at the point where it passes through the hole, if the hole is not made larger. As you ascend a spiral stair you run your hand along the handrail, your knuckles will will normally be slightly on the outside of the handrail, and you will therefore be in a perfect position to rap your knuckles on the edge of the opening unless the opening is bigger than the spiral stair.

If you are really stuck for space and need to squeeze the aperture dimensions a few millimetres, there are a few tricks that you can play around with. However you need specialist advice to make sure of what you are attempting before you go too far. You can for instance reduce the size of the hole a little and move the centre point of the spiral stair off centre, so that the point where the handrail passes the hole has more space, and the otherside of the stair is slightly outside of the hole. This however is only possible in very specific situations and cannot be taken for granted.

As with everything, make sure you know a man who knows, before you proceed.

The Staircase Doctor