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Good question; it applies to flight style staircases as well as spiral staircases. There is actually a requirement in the BS 5395 for treads to pass a slip test. Unfortunately unless someone has paid a fortune to have say a wooden spiral stair tread officially tested to B.S. it is very difficult to know what is acceptable. Not many stair manufacturers are likely to go that far because the costs are prohibitive.
Also Continental kit staircase manufacturers (which is just about everybody) would spend forever trying to get these tested and approved to the varying standards of each country that they market to. Personally I think common sense has to be applied, ask your mum what she considers to be non-slip. If a six year old in socks can slip on it, then it is slippy. But then again just about every surface in house can fit that category, so a judgement call has to be made.
Do you spoil your nice oak tread spiral staircase or do you sacrifice the kids, no contest of course, no one spoils a perfectly good spiral staircase. In answer to the original question I think the surface of any planed timber particularly if it is sealed would not pass the BS test . Unfortunately we like our wood smooth and usually shiny and that will always be slippy to a certain extent.
There is no magical type of timber that can defy this rule. There are some specialist surface finishes that are sold as non-slip, but I have yet to hear of any staircase manufacturer that has attempted to apply these to timber staircase treads. As you have asked the question, you are obviously concerned about slipping on a spiral staircase that is understandable. The only way to really be sure if it is a big issue is to roughen, cover or groove.
Some spiral stair manufacturers do leave the surface of the treads slightly rougher in an attempt to add a bit of non-slip, but it is not really enough, and not a good selling point either. Just like cars we buy by looks not safety. So the only option is to get spiral stair treads rubbed down again with a coarse sanding belt until you think you have an acceptable surface and then reseal it. Resealing will of course make it some what smoother again.
The first two are obvious the third is a selotape type product that you can buy. It is in fact just sticky backed tape but with a coarse surface. This is simply stuck to the finished surface of the wood in strips or little squares. It is usually clear tape but will still be visible on the surface. It works and does not look too bad. It is also ideal to retro fit if someone complains about the slippy treads. Carpet or mats are always difficult to finish neatly at the edges, the best solution, although the most complicated is to rout out the middle of the tread to the depth of the carpet, leaving a border around the edges, so that you end up with a carpeted insert like a door mat well.
Just like your garden timber decking you can groove the surface to create no-slip but unfortunately it will look a little like decking.
As you can see there is no magic solution to this potential hazard, personally I am not really sure how big a problem it is in a domestic property. Varnished timber is not that slippy and regular use educates people to be aware. If you have the very young or the very old likely to being using the staircase I think I would retro fit the tape first and see how you get on. It has the added advantage that you can take it off again.
The Stair Doctor
Building Regulation stairs Here in my royal palace at Staircase Kingdom I have noticed an increase in both phone and web requests from people asking for information on ‘building regulation stairs’. Nothing wrong with that, it is a good idea to ask questions if you are in need of a staircase and want to know that it complies with the Building Regulations.
The only problem with the request ‘building regulation stairs’ is that the people who ask it normally assume that ‘building regulation stairs’ are something that they can buy off the shelf and use anywhere for any purpose and they will comply with the regulations. Unfortunately life is not that simple, no staircase can be described as a building regulation staircase because no staircase can actually comply in every situation that you wish to use it in. The regulations vary depending on location and usage.
For instance it is quite obvious that a staircase that is suitable for your loft conversion would not be suitable as access to the gallery in a Cinema. The Building Regulations are designed so that such things as stairs and ramps provide safe access in both normal use and in an emergency evacuation situation. Therefore as a general rule the bigger the number of people using the stair the bigger the stair needs to be. It is obvious that non-domestic stairs require a higher degree of safety than domestic stairs that are used by less people.
So the regulations for non-domestic staircases are far tighter, and I have to say more confusing. Domestic stairs are covered by Part K (protection from falling, collision and impact) of the Building Regulations. For Non-domestic stairs you can add onto this Part M (Access and facilities for disabled people) and The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 for starters, not to mention various British Standards etc. So if you are into non-domestic stairs you need to be a specialist, and are in no need for advice from me, so this blog is about domestic stairs only.
Without getting too complicated Domestic Building Regulation staircases really fall into two categories (this is my description you will not see these categories in part K)
Unfortunately there is no middle ground we are talking large or small, there is no provision for medium serving a couple of rooms, this can make life complicated.
In order for a stair to be considered a ‘building regulation stair’ it would need to meet the rise going and pitch requirements of part K, plus a host of other requirements, but the first three are what determines the size of a stair and this is usually the stumbling block when people are considering a ‘building regulation stair’. “ Will it be too big to fit in my location? So if it serves more than one room think of the space that a typical house stair takes up and you will not be far wrong, because they also have to comply with the Regs. You cannot save space with a ‘building regulation’ main staircase for your house, the geometric requirements of the Regulations will not allow it.
Be careful with kit stairs these usually have adjustable rise and going so they may comply or not depending how you use them, and this again will be determined by the space you have available on the lower floor, the size of the aperture in the upper floor and your floor-to-floor height. Also be aware that if you are replacing a steep old stair in say a Victorian terrace, the chances are that neither the space nor the aperture will be large enough to insert a new building regulation stair in its place.
The clever people at the Building Regulations realised that it would be impossible to force main house stair requirements on say a loft conversion, because a lot houses simple did not have the space to put a full staircase on the existing landing. So some clever clogs came up with the idea of allowing single room loft conversions to use a less stringent set of rules. The thought being that one bedroom will only be used by say two people and therefore less people will use this type of stair, so the requirements can be less stringent.
This type of stair specifically excludes kitchens (big risk of fire) or lounges ( big risk of lots of participants in a Roman orgy needing to run for it). Two or more rooms and you are back to a main house building regulation stairs. Spiral staircases have their own set of rules (BS53095 part 2) see my other blogs on this subject.
I also have to point out that there is no provision in the Scottish Regs for space saver stairs ( I can not imagine why!!) So in this special category of stair you are allowed to have a much steeper stair that will take up less room, approx half that of a main stair. This is achieved using special paddle shaped treads that allow enough tread to stand on one side only of each tread. They are called alternate tread stairs and actually work better than you expect and the space that they save is amazing. (see my blogs on space saver stairs for more specific details).
There are lots of other rules governing these stairs but generally you can have one made or purchase a kit that will comply with the regulations but as with the main house stairs you cannot assume that your space dimensions will allow a compliant stair to fit. The moral of this tale is do not ask silly questions that assume any stair can be a building regulation stair in your castle. Give ‘a man who knows’ your details and let him advise you.
The Staircase Doctor