What space for stairs

rampantbunny

Hi folks. Won't be long before I start my new build. Have planning permission and all sorted but just working out the internals.

I designed the 'look' of the house myself, ran it by my architect brother in law and he submitted it etc. He doesn't really do house planning (more industrial builds) so am here looking for advice rather than turning to him.

My question - in a two-storey house, how much space do you need to install a straight stairs. Only interested in the length of the footprint really (not width).

I ask as I've a stairs on my drawing which curves across my entrance hallway. Not sure it will have risen enough before it crosses over (don't want to be decapitated). So I'm wondering if I have enough depth in my hallway to just go straight up to the next floor, without interfering with the room layout upstairs.

All advice welcomed.

sydthebeat

rampantbunny wrote: »

Hi folks. Won't be long before I start my new build. Have planning permission and all sorted but just working out the internals.

I designed the 'look' of the house myself, ran it by my architect brother in law and he submitted it etc. He doesn't really do house planning (more industrial builds) so am here looking for advice rather than turning to him.

My question - in a two-storey house, how much space do you need to install a straight stairs. Only interested in the length of the footprint really (not width).

I ask as I've a stairs on my drawing which curves across my entrance hallway. Not sure it will have risen enough before it crosses over (don't want to be decapitated). So I'm wondering if I have enough depth in my hallway to just go straight up to the next floor, without interfering with the room layout upstairs.

All advice welcomed.

Technical guidance document K

archtech

your brother in law the architect should be able to tell you if it complies or what will in the space you have in a few minutes. A normal straight flight would be in the order of 3.5 metres +/- 200mm depending pitch rise etc.

muffler

If its a straight flight of stairs then the stairwell formed the same length of the stairs and you cant go wrong except.......its not just that simple.

You are asking now after plans have being done for this and you say you want to ensure they stairs can be accommodated "without interfering with the room layout upstairs" The stairs and room layout must work together and this should have been done at design stage. There's no point in having a particular size of hall, landing a room layout on the first floor if the stairs dont come up to scratch so to speak.

There are quite a few regs regarding stairs not least the floor to floor height and available length which in turn dictates the pitch and then you have to ensure the width and heights of treads and risers dont exceed building reg requirements etc etc

There is no "one size fits all" answer to your question unfortunately.

rampantbunny

sydthebeat wrote: »

Technical guidance document K

I should have stipulated that I'm only looking for an approximation, but thanks for the document referral. I have it already, but I'm not at a level where I can read it and do the math etc.

rampantbunny

archtech wrote: »

your brother in law the architect should be able to tell you if it complies or what will in the space you have in a few minutes. A normal straight flight would be in the order of 3.5 metres +/- 200mm depending pitch rise etc.

Nice one Archtech...a rough figure is what I'm looking for. There's a curved stairs on the plan, I know what sort of space I have upstairs on my landing, so having an idea of straight stairs footprint is great. Cheers for that.

rampantbunny

muffler wrote: »

If its a straight flight of stairs then the stairwell formed the same length of the stairs and you cant go wrong except.......its not just that simple.

You are asking now after plans have being done for this and you say you want to ensure they stairs can be accommodated "without interfering with the room layout upstairs" The stairs and room layout must work together and this should have been done at design stage. There's no point in having a particular size of hall, landing a room layout on the first floor if the stairs dont come up to scratch so to speak.

Hi Muffler, I understand what you're saying re. coming to the party late with design etc. Under the current plans the house could be built without problems. My planning permission came through 3+ years ago, but I've been away and now back. I'm reviewing the plans and wouldn't mind changing a few things, primarily the stairs as even if it fits adequately there is the aesthetic aspect.

I suppose I should have just skipped the background details and asked "..typical straight stairs in typical two storey house, what kind of lengths we talking about".

muffler wrote: »

There are quite a few regs regarding stairs not least the floor to floor height and available length which in turn dictates the pitch and then you have to ensure the width and heights of treads and risers dont exceed building reg requirements etc etc

Yea, that's what I gathered from the doc K, but was hoping for a general rule of thumb between x metres and y metres. Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

sydthebeat

rampantbunny wrote: »

Yea, that's what I gathered from the doc K, but was hoping for a general rule of thumb between x metres and y metres. Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

in all respect the minimum "rule of thumb" is compliance with regulation.

everything must comply, not just the opening area on the landing/.

rampantbunny

sydthebeat wrote: »

in all respect the minimum "rule of thumb" is compliance with regulation.

everything must comply, not just the opening area on the landing/.

I understand the concept of regulations
And I assume other posters would answer adhering to these.

The regs. provide the numbers, but nothing like a real-world view, such as from Archtech.


Thanks.

Slig

rampantbunny wrote: »

I understand the concept of regulations
And I assume other posters would answer adhering to these.

The regs. provide the numbers, but nothing like a real-world view, such as from Archtech.


Thanks.

You are asking "how long is a piece of string?" and getting pissy because nobody is giving you an actual measurement, I cant quite understand if you are trolling or just really really short sighted so I'll just be blunt here.

This is ,presumably, a one-off new house, you cant just put in a stairs that " should fit." The rule of thumb applies to a bog standard situation which is a 2.45m floor to ceiling height on a mass produced, housing estate house. If you have a one off house then you may have larger rooms meaning thicker floors, you probably have a higher ceiling than 2.45, are there going to be doors at the bottom of the stairs? All these things (and many others) will mean that you need a larger stairs than the standard "rule of thumb" stairs.

All these things have to be considered now and a correct stairs designed to fit your actual situation because if its not then you'll have a certifying architect/engineer telling you that the stairs you paid for will have to be taken out, replaced and you wont get your mortgage draw down until its done.

I have seen this with plenty of clients in the past and unless you sit down with an architect, go through what you want with them and get a proper set of construction drawings drawn up that answer these types of questions before you start building you will be paying way more than you should be. As clearly demonstrated on a recent episode of "Grand Designs" its far cheaper and more efficient to only build something once than to design and change as you go.

rampantbunny

Slig wrote: »

You are asking "how long is a piece of string?" and getting pissy because nobody is giving you an actual measurement, I cant quite understand if you are trolling or just really really short sighted so I'll just be blunt here.

Whoa Slig...that's not called for. I'll keep this short (not blunt) because I'm not sure you've read the whole thread carefully.
Firstly, thank you for going to the effort of responding with information that is appreciated and I'm sure it will help many, especially those that have not read or looked at the regulations.

Secondly, in no way was I getting pissy. I thanked everyone that responded to me and appreciated the effort they went to. It's the very very short-sighted comment that makes me think you haven't read the whole thread. My response to Muffler earlier indicated that I had finalised plans that I could build from without issue, but was looking at maybe changing a few things for aesthetic reasons.

As for trolling...well I take that a little more seriously. If it wasn't for your high post count I could accuse you of the same, despite the addition of helpful information.
Tell you what, tell me why you think I was trolling and if there's anything I can do to not give off that impression I'll try.

BryanF

whoa!
why not give a floor to ceiling and the lenght of flight/ distance that you have aloud for the install?

Poor Uncle Tom

@ everybody:
No more off-topic digs or rants please.

The relevant question is:

rampantbunny wrote: »

My question - in a two-storey house, how much space do you need to install a straight stairs. Only interested in the length of the footprint really (not width).

In order to answer this we need to know what the height difference is between finished floors.

Your answer will be given as a range between X and Y subject to compliance with all the other criteria in Document K.

If anyone has a problem with this, keep it off the thread and PM a mod.

rampantbunny

BryanF wrote: »

whoa!
why not give a floor to ceiling and the lenght of flight/ distance that you have aloud for the install?

Hi BryanF, I'm now whoaed

My floor to ceiling height is 2600mm.
The downstairs space for hall footprint is 3700mm - but this is measured from directly inside the front door i.e. still have to subtract the 400mm minimum clearance from doorway...which is not a lot and I'd like a bigger clearing at bottom if possible.

Just to help visualise what I have:
Current stairs on plan starts directly inside front door to the right hand side. The first step is just over 400mm back and is almost perpendicular to doorway. The stairs takes a 90 degree turn (in the first 3 steps), carries on straight up, then curves across (right to left).

I think the bottom step looks too close to doorway, and I think maybe the overhead curve will have to be ducked around if you walk too near the stairs (unavoidable I suppose with a curve). Hence wondering if enough room to go straight up.

Cheers for responding.


...and @everyone..sorry for the earlier rant

BryanF

2600 + 200 floor depth, 2800/200rise = 14steps * 250 going= 3500 length straight flight ( I haven't checked the variations of this. (Cause this is your arch's problem)
Page 9 part k

rampantbunny

BryanF wrote: »

2600 + 200 floor depth, 2800/200rise = 14steps * 250 going= 3500 length straight flight ( I haven't checked the variations of this. (Cause this is your arch's problem)
Page 9 part k

Thanks BryanF, I've used your example to work out other variations, so that's a big help.

Even if I take the minimum going (220) and maximum rise (220) from the doc K, the stairs comes in at 2860 which doesn't allow me to have my 'ideal' of 1000mm from bottom step to front door.
...incidentally I noticed the above calc puts the stairs angle at 44.3 degrees, which breaks the regs (didn't think you could break the regs using the allowed mins and max figures, but maybe me sums is wrong).

Anyway, I'm satisfied that a straight stairs, whilst possible, will look cramped if I want to put a decent distance between the door and bottom step - so for me the matter is closed.

Thanks to everyone for their help.

sydthebeat

Rampant, immediately you've made the mistake of looking at minimums.

The regulations are not notional measurements, they are real world figures.

If you continue down the route of not getting this area designed properly, you are in for a rude awakening.

BryanF

You must stay within the angle required by the regs

rampantbunny

sydthebeat wrote: »

Rampant, immediately you've made the mistake of looking at minimums.
The regulations are not notional measurements, they are real world figures.

Hi Sydthebeat. I really really hope this doesn't come across argumentative or rude because I don't intend it that way...so here it goes.

I took the minimum figures deliberately, and it just helped me demonstrate that because the absolute minimums according to the regs don't work out, then anything moving towards optimum figures definitely wouldn't work i.e. no possible way a straight stairs would fit.

sydthebeat wrote: »

If you continue down the route of not getting this area designed properly, you are in for a rude awakening.

Since the start all I've actually wanted is an idea of what is possible\not possible. And I've been given enough guidance\advice here to say that I'm better educated now.
I was never setting out to design this and commit this to plan myself. I'll be meeting with my architect to finalise everything and based on what I've learned here, I'll at least be equipped to discuss the plans better with him. He's family, I want to be appreciative of his time, so just want to have a clue before I ask stupid questions of him etc. Plus of course, there's the cost of a curved staircase versus straight to consider..if it looked possible to go straight (poor turn of phrase there), then why not suggest a change to architect before building and regretting the spend.

All said, I'm happy out. Fantastic to get all this advice...I'm off to look at my kitchen layout now, any takers

muffler

Based on the floor to ceiling height posted earlier you will need a minimum of 14 risers and 13 treads obviously so work from that.