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May 31, 2011

Can I transport a kit spiral staircase in my car to my holiday home.

Over the years I have loaded many spiral staircase kits into all sorts of vehicles including cars. However it all depends on which spiral stair kit and which car.

As an example,a 1400mm diameter Klan spiral staircase kit is delivered in a palletised crate 1240 x 1000 x 580mm and weighs 200 kgs. This size of crate will fit into the back of a small van and may even fit into an estate car, but lifting a 200kg box in and out of your chariot is no easy matter. The good news is that if you open the crate each individual element of the Klan spiral stair is easy to carry and can fit into boot, back seat, passenger seat and floor wells of most saloon vehicles. Even the centre pole element of kit spiral staircase is supplied in pieces no longer that 1200mm. All the small bits cram into the nooks and crannies.

Obviously it is not possible for me to say how small a car you can get away to load a spiral staircase kit but common sense needs to prevail,leave the Ferrari on the drive and use the Ford. Also note that wooden tread spiral stairs like the Klan are easier to store than say a metal tread kit like the Civik. This is because the metal tread elements include a welded centre pole sleeve that sticks out at right angles to the tread and makes it more difficult to pack.

My advice as always before you buy is talk to a someone who can advise on your specific requirements, between you, you should be able to work out the possibilities.

The Spiral staircase Doctor

May 23, 2011

Can I put a square spiral staircase on top of a round spiral staircase.

An unusual question and one that the old spiral stair doctor has to confess he has never been asked before

First let us define a square spiral stair or a squiral as I once heard a fellow stair head define it. A square spiral goes round in a circle around a centre pole like a normal spiral stair, but the outer edges of treads are shaped so that they form into a series of right angles and the whole spiral staircase ends up as a square rather than a round shape. The idea is that if you are trying to fit a spiral stair into a square shaft surrounded by walls the outer edge of the spiral stair will fit neatly into the corners. Personally I have never been sold on the concept, it makes the balustrading difficult to form and it can limit the options for entry and exit points. However there are people who like the look of it

So this questioner wants a ground to second floor spiral stair that for artistic design reasons is round between ground and first and square from first to second floor. In theory it is possible but as with all spiral staircases there are special considerations and problems with making them work between multiple floors. These are well covered in earlier blogs so need not be gone into here. Having never been involved in such a staircase I have had to think this through, but providing the rotational characteristics of the two spiral staircases work with the floor layout and the floor-to-floor heights I cannot see any major reason why this odd requirement cannot be accommodated. I would not though attempt this with any of kit spiral staircases on the market that offer both square and round versions. For this sort of project you definitely need to be looking a more expensive made-to-measure option and expect to pay more for the unusual design.

The spiral staircase Doctor

May 19, 2011

Can you put a trap door on a loft spiral staircase or a space saver stair.

Assuming that you are using your loft as an unheated storage area then closing it off with a door is a good idea. The door will prevent all the heat from the house disappearing into your loft. There are however downsides to using a horizontal trap door in the ceiling when you change from a loft ladder to a staircase. Both space saver stairs and spiral staircases in fact all staircases have handrails that project up above floor level, these will prevent the loft hatch from closing. You can finish your handrailing at ceiling level but this also creates problems. Unlike loft ladders you walk down a staircase facing out, and this can feel quite awkward stepping onto the stair when descending if you have nothing to grab hold of as you stare into the abyss below. Having said that I know of hundreds of examples of people who have used a trap door solution and are quite happy with it. This invariably is with a kit space saver stair as forming a trap door over the larger area required for a spiral staircase is difficult.

An alternative to a loft hatch is to form a small lobby area on the loft floor and put a normal door in it to access the loft. This will solve both handrail and heat loss problems but it will take up loft space and probably cost more.

A word of warning, under the Building Regulations staircases are required to have guarding from falling off them all the way up, so finishing the handrail finishing at ceiling level would be a no no in the eyes of the law.

May 07, 2011

The walls make access difficult to my proposed spiral staircase, what can I do?

The questioner is trying to install a spiral staircase into a recess downstairs that consists of three surrounding walls. The rotational characteristics of the chosen Genius spiral staircase means the fixed stepping of point upstairs determines that the position the bottom step of the spiral stair downstairs is difficult to access because of the surrounding walls.

This is a typical problem with spiral staircases as I have discussed before the rotation of a spiral stair is basically pre-determined depending on the overall height and the diameter. So if your landing layout upstairs determines that you can only step off at say 6 0'clock then stepping on at the bottom will be a fixed number of degrees rotation, probably between 4 and 8 o'clock. The result of this in some cases is that the bottom tread of the spiral staircase ends up pointing at a wall.

  • Try reversing the direction of rotation.
  • Make the floor aperture round instead of square, this allows the spiral staircase landing triangle to be rotated slightly in either direction. This in turn will move the bottom tread by the same amount, which might help.
  • Start the spiral stair balustrade on tread 2 or even 3 up from the bottom, this allows side access to the bottom tread which may improve things.
  • Consider putting a double sized bottom tread in, this may or may not give you more access
  • Start again, knock a wall down and put it all down to experience. Also sack the guy who did your drawings for the project without consulting a man who knows first.

The Staircase Doctor (please please invite me to the Architect lynching).

May 04, 2011

How do you calculate the going on an alternate tread stair?

The questioner is trying to ascertain if his space saver stair complies with the Building Regulations. These sort of stairs are referred to in the regulations as alternating treads stairs, this is because they use paddle shaped steps that are arranged alternately with a full depth of tread on one side only. This arrangement allows you to have a steep space saving staircase that still has enough depth of step front-to-back to walk up.

The Building Regulations require that all staircases (spiral staircases are an exception where other rules can apply) have a minimum amount of usable depth of tread called the going. For domestic stairs in England and Wales the minimum going is 220mm (crude conversion of 9 inches in old money) in Scotland they want 225mm (just be different), and in Ireland they want 220mm minimum with an optimum of 250mm (just to be awkward).

Space saver stairs or alternate tread stairs require the same going as all other stairs but you measure it as defined in part K of the English/Welsh Regs from nosing of one tread to the nosing of the tread two steps above, as opposed to the normal one tread above. In most propriety kit space saver stairs like the Karina,Kya,Berlin or Mini you will find that you have a compliant fixed going of around 240mm. However if you are trying to work out the overall footprint of the stair bear in mind that the actual going of each tread is half of this dimension ie. 120mm. That is why it saves space and gives a compliant tread going at the same time.

Confused? Yes so am I.

The staircase Doctor