On Jan 17, 10:36*am, "
wrote:
On Jan 17, 9:30*am, DerbyDad03 wrote:



On Jan 17, 9:07*am, "
wrote:

On Jan 17, 1:57*am, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:06:53 -0600, The Daring Dufas

wrote:
This comes up because of a tragic accident with some folks I know. The
elderly grandmother, 88 was at home with her granddaughter, the
granddaughter's three young children and the granddaughter's boyfriend.
The boyfriend had just spoken to grandma then went into the room with
his gal when they heard an awful sound. Grandma had fallen down the
basement stairs to the concrete floor below. The boyfriend ran down to
check on grandma but she was fatally injured. What happened was the
door to the basement stairs opened into the stairwell and the latch was
defective and failed to hold when grandma was walking down the hallway
holding onto the walls to steady herself. When she put her weight
against the door, it sprang open and she fell through it and down the
stairs. It seems to me that most basement doors I've seen open out and
not into the stairwell. I don't know if there is a home-building code
regarding this or not but anyone building a house should consider the
safety of a door which opens into a stairwell. O_o

TDD

My sister's house has a basement with a door that opens out. *Even
with that bit of safety I think having the stairs start immediately at
the top, just beyond the door, is asking for trouble since at some
point it seems like someone is going to mistake the basement door for
a bedroom door and in the dark/dim light open it and just "walk in"..
Seems like putting a couple feet of landing,on the "other side" of the
door, at the top of these stairs would make them a lot safer.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

95%+ of residential basement stairs I've seen don't have any
landing at the top. *And it must not be much of a problem,
because the cases of someone doing what you suggest seem
to be rare. It would have to be dark not only in the stairwell, but
also in the area inside the house by the door. *And it would
seem that if that is the case, then with your example of someone
walking around in pitch black, thinking they are entering a room,
wouldn't they then just walk off the 3 foot landing anyway?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As far as walking off of the landing, in many cases the landing is a
step down from room above, and often at a right angle to the stairs.
At least that's the way it is in many of the house I've seen/lived in.
Therefore, if I thought I was walking into a room, that first step
down would hurt, but I don't think I'd fall down the stairs. Of
course, I don't plan on proving myself right any time soon. ;-)

I find your 95%+ with no landing to be an interesting number. I'll
have to keep an eye out on that. In my experience (or maybe just in my
mind) I would say it is the exact opposite.

Very often, at least in my experience, there is an exterior door
associated with the basement stairs, such as an entrance from the
garage or from the side or back yard. Since there is usually a storm
door associated with this entranceway, the entry door opens in over a
landing. For example, at my house, if you come in from the garage you
would cross the landing and step up into the kitchen or turn right and
go down the basement steps.

*At my parent's and sister's houses, you

would come in from the yard, cross the landing and go down the steps
or turn right and step up into the kitchen.

I'll have to ask some of coworkers to see how many landings there are
in our small group.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, those are exactly the arrangements that I have
seen where there is a landing too. *But around here,
they are confined to old homes. *A friend for example
has a house like that, but it's 100 years old. *My
grandparents had a house they rented out that was
about that age too. *Both of those, the back entrance
was as you describe. *Around here there are so many
new houses and I've never seen that arrangement
in those. *If you live in an area with a more substantial
ratio of old houses, then I agree they could be more
common.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Another item to add to the discussion is the angle of the steps.

When we were house hunting, my first stop was usually the basement
since you can learn so, so much about a house from down there.

In many cases, I could tell if the house stood a chance with my wife
just by going down the basement stairs. If they were too steep (like
before current codes) I knew my wife would balk. Her fear of heights
is so strong that steep steps are a real issue.

There were some houses where I would go down the steep stairs and then
turn around to what it would take to "un-steep" them in case we liked
everything else about the house.