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