Stairs/landing Query

creedp

Hi

My builder has all of a sudden thrown a spanner in the works concerning the stairs in my new build. My engineer had taken some time to set up the stairs so that at the bottom it was 400mm from the nearest door (1.4m form the front door) and incorporated a square return and 300mm threads. Now the builder is saying that due to some adjustment in ceiling height he now has a problem - obviously he hadn't realised this before now!

He now says he has to pull the bottom of the stairs back so that it is only about 100mm from a room door entrance (not front door which - it will be about 1.1m from front door) and he has to reduce the thread size to 240mm as well as adding a half step on the return for it to fit. Alternatively he can leave the bottom of stairs as is and add an additional step at the top - this will require the landing to be reduced by 300mm from 1.3m to 1m (approx).

I'm concerned with both options as with the first, the bottom of the stairs will be very close to a room entrance and in my opinion too close to the front door. The second solves the above problems but narrows the upstairs landing significantly. My question is which is the least worst option at this point? Is a 1m/0.9m landing corridor too narrow or would it be sufficient? Btw the front part of the landing is 1.5m and the rear part is about 1.3m so it will all be very asymetrical - is this a problem in anybody opinion? Finally, would anybody be concerned about threads which are only 240mm deep and and a half step on the return?


All comments appreciated

Thanks

sydthebeat

creedp wrote: »

Hi

My builder has all of a sudden thrown a spanner in the works concerning the stairs in my new build. My engineer had taken some time to set up the stairs so that at the bottom it was 400mm from the nearest door (1.4m form the front door) and incorporated a square return and 300mm threads. Now the builder is saying that due to some adjustment in ceiling height he now has a problem - obviously he hadn't realised this before now!

He now says he has to pull the bottom of the stairs back so that it is only about 100mm from a room door entrance (not front door which - it will be about 1.1m from front door) and he has to reduce the thread size to 240mm as well as adding a half step on the return for it to fit. Alternatively he can leave the bottom of stairs as is and add an additional step at the top - this will require the landing to be reduced by 300mm from 1.3m to 1m (approx).

I'm concerned with both options as with the first, the bottom of the stairs will be very close to a room entrance and in my opinion too close to the front door. The second solves the above problems but narrows the upstairs landing significantly. My question is which is the least worst option at this point? Is a 1m/0.9m landing corridor too narrow or would it be sufficient? Btw the front part of the landing is 1.5m and the rear part is about 1.3m so it will all be very asymetrical - is this a problem in anybody opinion? Finally, would anybody be concerned about threads which are only 240mm deep and and a half step on the return?


All comments appreciated

Thanks

do u have the dog leg on the bottom of the stairs? if so you can add two tapered threads to this quarter landing, which will solve both issues.

If the dog leg is towards the top however, you cannot do this.

creedp

I'm afraid the dog leg is at the top so options are limited. It seems now engineer is happy with first option, i.e. pulling bottom step closer to front door by 300mm, thereby only leaving approx 200mm between bottom step and front doot when fully opened. He has suggested hinging the front door on the other side to avoid this problem although this will mean that it will not be possible to walk in front door and directly enter sitting room - will first have to partially close front door to gain access. I don't like this option but it may be the best of a bad lot.

One final point is that the riser has to be 192mm in order for the above option to fit - is 192mm an OK riser height, seems a bit high to me - any opinons on this?

Thanks

sydthebeat

the threads and risers are fine, it gives 39 deg pitch

be concious that the front door cannot swing within 400mm of the bottom step.

creedp

Thanks Sydthebeat. At least I can have comfort in the fact that the threads and risers are OK! The real issue is then the gap between the open front door and the bottom step which was fine in the drawings and now not so in the real world. Its strange that my engineer apparently is OK with the fact that the open front door is not 400mm from the last step even though it is required by Regs. Must be betting on the fact that I'll hinge the door on the opposite side.

Thanks again