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Edwin Pawlowski Edwin Pawlowski is offline
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Default Stair railing clearance?


"mm" wrote in message
Stairway handrails shall have a circular cross section with an outside
diameter of at least 1¼ inches and not greater than two inches.


"Circular" seems to exclude a lot of pretty bannisters. Isn't a
bannister a kind of handrail? Even a lot of handrails don't have
circular cross sections. Does some code not permit them to be
installed anymore?


The ADA does not permit them, but under some circumstances, OSHA does. I
don't know about residential as codes can vary locally.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Italy and we stopped at a fairly new shopping
center, less than a year old. We went down some outdoor concrete steps that
were between two walls. There was no handrail at all. In the US, it would
not have been allowed to open.