Hi

'Ruski )' asked this question some time ago:

Having 'studied' Part K I know the height that a handrail has to be - but in
my particular application for replacing the old ranch style ballustrading
the existing handrail does not go from bottom newel to top newel - it
terminates at the underside of the ceiling, because of an offset landing
floor. There is no room for a straight line for a full length handrail. A
seperate assembly protects the landing area, so my question is does the
handrail HAVE to go from top to bottom - I can't see mention of it in the
regs....

Any idea???

But didnt get an anwer...

I have a very similar problem in a new staircase as part of a loft
conversion. It's a double winder staircase with solid walls on both
side for the lower part, turning into spindles, newls etc to produce
the guard rail at the top.

Because no allowance for a handrail was made the new loft room floor
overlaps the stringers on the stairs, the point in a newl where a
handrail would normally terminate is taken up by the guard banister,
and the handrail would have to go 'through the floor' to get to that
point on the Newl anyway.

Coming out of the newl at 90deg to the guard rail and then quickly
turning 90deg to go down the stairs would work, but would use up
preicious width at the top of the stairs.

Any good ideas of how I get around it without major re-work (it's
plastered and painted!)

See:

http://mach.unseen.org/~kevin/loft/stairs.jpg

for a picture of the top of the stairs.

Cheers
Kev

"Kevin Walton" wrote in message
om...
Hi

'Ruski )' asked this question some time ago:

Having 'studied' Part K I know the height that a handrail has to be -
but in
my particular application for replacing the old ranch style
ballustrading
the existing handrail does not go from bottom newel to top newel - it
terminates at the underside of the ceiling, because of an offset landing
floor. There is no room for a straight line for a full length handrail.
A
seperate assembly protects the landing area, so my question is does the
handrail HAVE to go from top to bottom - I can't see mention of it in
the
regs....

Any idea???

As well as the diagrams in part K there are some possibilities in the BS
mentioned there.
But at the end of the day, some houses just can't meet these standards so
you need to negotiate "best effort" with your BCO.

Kevin Walton wrote:

I have a very similar problem in a new staircase as part of a loft
conversion. It's a double winder staircase with solid walls on both
side for the lower part, turning into spindles, newls etc to produce
the guard rail at the top.

This is something I will need to sort out soon on my one - still in two
minds as to which way will be best to do it.

There are a couple of things that you can do that might make it a bit
simpler. The first is to remember that the requirements for guarding and
those for a hand rail do not need to be satisfied by the same apparatus.
In other words you can use diminishing height spindles that run up to
the ceiling to satisfy the guarding requirements. But then have a
separate handrail that is nothing to do with the ballustrading to meet
the requirements for the handrail.

Note also that the preference (from a BCOs perspective) is usually to
have the handrail on the outside of the steps when there are a couple of
quarter winders since it will be closer to the wider part of the steps
that you are more likely to walk on.

So looking at your photo, you could fix a spigoted newel about 6" behind
the exiting one on the left, and use this as one end of the
ballustrading that will guard the landing to the left of your photo. You
would also have a short length or banister with probably a single
spindle between the two newels. You could then have a separate handrail
that is fixed to the far wall either coming the whole way up the stairs
and turning the corner, or, just for the last section where there will
be no banister. A smallish profile rail on short brackets should not
stand out too far.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote in message ...
Kevin Walton wrote:

I have a very similar problem in a new staircase as part of a loft
conversion. It's a double winder staircase with solid walls on both
side for the lower part, turning into spindles, newls etc to produce
the guard rail at the top.

[snip]

So looking at your photo, you could fix a spigoted newel about 6" behind
the exiting one on the left, and use this as one end of the
ballustrading that will guard the landing to the left of your photo. You
would also have a short length or banister with probably a single
spindle between the two newels. You could then have a separate handrail
that is fixed to the far wall either coming the whole way up the stairs
and turning the corner, or, just for the last section where there will
be no banister. A smallish profile rail on short brackets should not
stand out too far.

Hi John

Thanks for the suggestion, just trying to work through it. The
guarding to the left in the picture is not a problem, I don't /need/ a
Newl at the 90deg bend that you can see in the base plate, just using
spindles to support the guard rail around the corner, with the 90 deg
join in the guard rail glued and doweled.

A handrail up the far wall is fine and works for the bend at the
bottom too, but then I have a problem bringing it around the top
corner across the spindles that are fitted for the guarding and
terminating on the top Newl? The main problem is reducing the gap
between the two top Newls, but also the solid fixing of the handrail.

That does raise a couple of other questions:

Any advice on handrail size and distance from the wall , I'm obviously
after a slim rail, fixed V close to the wall - could I get away with
(for example) a piece of top guard rail mounted on it's side and
screwed directly into the wall?

Handrail following the Pitch line on a double winder staircase - do I
have to change pitch with the winders on each corner? - i.e. follow a
line 900mm or so above the stringer and follow it's change of pitch
around the corners?

Thanks in advance.
Kev

Kevin Walton wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion, just trying to work through it. The
guarding to the left in the picture is not a problem, I don't /need/ a
Newl at the 90deg bend that you can see in the base plate, just using

I suggested the extra newel onyl because it might look a bit nicer
(especially since you have quite attractive turned newels there
already). As you say though, you could do it well enough without.

A handrail up the far wall is fine and works for the bend at the
bottom too, but then I have a problem bringing it around the top
corner across the spindles that are fitted for the guarding and
terminating on the top Newl? The main problem is reducing the gap
between the two top Newls, but also the solid fixing of the handrail.

You would probably find a reasonably solid hand rail could span the gap
from far wall to newel, however "reasonably solid" requirement would
conflict with the desire to avoid reducing the width too much.

One thing you often see on corner newels is a vertical section of
handrail that runs up the side of the newel. If you had the extra corner
newel I suggested this could also take a section of vertical rail a bit
like:

(Side view)
_
/ \
\ /
||
| |
| |===\
| |=\ |
| | | |
^
^ Rail
Newel

Note also that according to the building regs (in a residential
property) you don't need a handrail for the bottom two steps.

Any advice on handrail size and distance from the wall , I'm obviously
after a slim rail, fixed V close to the wall - could I get away with
(for example) a piece of top guard rail mounted on it's side and
screwed directly into the wall?

There are a few "standard" profiles that seem to be used for hand rails.
One of them is quite slim (approx 40mm) but would need mounting on
stand-off brackets of some sort:-

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/...01832&ts=55126

The brackets need to allow enough space to get your fingers round the
rail against the wall.

If you were going with the rail on the outside approach, then I would be
tempted to take the top (and bottom) sections of rail up to the side of
the newel and butt it against it without a bracket (having cut away a
little of the width of the rail at the point where it joins the newel,
so you have flat section against the newel). Since the newel is much
thicker than the spindles there would probably be enough space behind
the rail for hand clearance without the stand-offs. This would save you
width.

Looking down at the top right section of your photo:

Handrail
v
| ||*|
| || |
| ||*|
| || |
| ||*| -- spindles / guarding on landing
| || |
| ||*|
| || |
| +-----+
| | |
| | | -- newel
| +-----+

^
Handrail cut into side of newel

Handrail following the Pitch line on a double winder staircase - do I
have to change pitch with the winders on each corner? - i.e. follow a
line 900mm or so above the stringer and follow it's change of pitch
around the corners?

The pitch often changes on the top and bottom section (i.e. the bits on
the corners are a little shallower than the main section above the
strings. If you went for handrail on the inside of the corners, with a
vertical section on the newels then there would be no top and bottom
sections anyway however.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Hi

Thanks for the help guys, I managed to get it sorted at the weekend. I
took the handrail up the 'long' side of the stairs. It ended up as 6
pieces due to the 90 deg corners and the change of angle at the
winders.

It should really have been 7, but the difficult piece next to the top
guard rail I did as one, turned around 90deg so the flat of the
handrail pointed towards the guard rail and I screwed the top end
directly to the Newl and the bottom end I butted to the wall and
screwed into from the othe side of the wall.

Cheers
Kev