Stair Design for Comfort

[sruk]

4 hours ago, PeterW said:

Have to be the same and tbh if you’re not building the staircase yourself then suggest you plug it into one of the many online stair design products and play with it there. Pears Stairs is one of many. 

I m going to build it myself, to build each step accurate to the mm I will manage but it will be challenging build it with an accuracy of 10th of mm

[sruk]

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

I am also pretty sure the half landing must be as wide as the stair, so if you can only fit a 840mm half landing then probably the whole stair will have to be 840mm.  Is that allowed where you are ?  (In Scotland the minimum is now 900mm)

 

In England the min width is 800mm the landing is good with regs I just want to know what people think of it practically and comfort wise.

[sruk]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

It is less than in a change of floor covering. However if that was added to an actual change in floor covering, and perhaps some construction tolerances, it could feasibly become a trip risk.

My plan is to make it wood with no covering.

[joe90]

50 minutes ago, sruk said:

My plan is to make it wood with no covering.

But what about floor covering at both top and bottom of stairs?

[sruk]

38 minutes ago, joe90 said:

But what about floor covering at both top and bottom of stairs?

bottom will be parquet or tiles, top will be parquet

[Adsibob]

On 15/02/2017 at 14:10, TerryE said:

The reason is that your brain is very good at placing your feet, but if the rise and going aren't exactly the same then it becomes quite easy to trip or stumble and this is very dangerous on a stair.

 

This doesn’t make sense to me. If your riser distance equalled your going distance, your staircase would be 45 degrees and would be uncomfortably steep. 37 to 41 is more usual. The going needs to be significantly larger than the riser, because the going needs to accommodate an adult foot, whereas the riser needs to be a comfortable height to step up. Too low and it feels odd, too high and it will be hard work for those with mobility issues, and feel steep for everyone. 18.5cm riser and 26.5cm going is pretty comfy, but I guess it depends on each individual’s ergonomics. 

I agree with the comment about looking at the building regs. 90cm is a perfectly adequate width, but if you can fit a bit wider, e.g. 95cm, that will give you more space to get furniture up, as well as making the staircase feel more airy and spacious.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Adsibob

[joe90]

2 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

This doesn’t make sense to me. If your riser distance equalled your going distance, your staircase would be 45 degrees and would be uncomfortably steep.

42’ is building regs (as far as I remember) , however treads have “noses” (the overhang of tread over riser) making the treads a little longer. Use an online stair calculator, I did, takes all the stress out of calculations.

[sruk]

I used https://www.blocklayer.com/stairs/steel-spine.aspx to calculate it advised to do some rises at 178mm and some at 179mm, this gives me 34.1 degrees, I am not sure but it feels a little horizontal to me am i right? the other option i get is 1 step less and rises varying between 190 & 191mm resulting in 35.8 degrees, i think the degree here is fine but i think 190mm is a little on the steep side, no? my current stairs are 184mm rise by 260mm going and are pretty comfortable, after works the total height will be 27mm higher then now, I don't mind adding another stair for comfort but going from 184mm to 190mm rise seems i will loose the comfort, please advise if you think I am wrong.

I wont make the staircase wider then 900mm as my hallway is 2500mm wide and do not want to take away to much from the width. my current stairs are 840mm and I had no problem taking up furniture.

 

[markc]

3 hours ago, sruk said:

I used https://www.blocklayer.com/stairs/steel-spine.aspx to calculate it advised to do some rises at 178mm and some at 179mm, this gives me 34.1 degrees, I am not sure but it feels a little horizontal to me am i right? the other option i get is 1 step less and rises varying between 190 & 191mm resulting in 35.8 degrees, i think the degree here is fine but i think 190mm is a little on the steep side, no? my current stairs are 184mm rise by 260mm going and are pretty comfortable, after works the total height will be 27mm higher then now, I don't mind adding another stair for comfort but going from 184mm to 190mm rise seems i will loose the comfort, please advise if you think I am wrong.

I wont make the staircase wider then 900mm as my hallway is 2500mm wide and do not want to take away to much from the width. my current stairs are 840mm and I had no problem taking up furniture.

 

36 degrees is really shallow for a domestic stair, making some risers 1mm different seems odd, does the calculator not have the option for .5 mm.

as this is an existing property you have a little more “tolerance” and your floor coverings could easily explain a few mm at the bottom. 
is the 900 overall? Or tread width? If it’s tread width then the landing should be the same or bigger, but if it’s 900 overall then taking out the stringers thickness puts you very close to the 840. The jutting out first step after landing shouldn’t encroach on the landing so that could do with moving forward or being hidden by a newelpost.

184 rise to 190 is a big jump, it would be worth a moch up with some scaff boards to try a short section.

[jack]

8 hours ago, Adsibob said:

This doesn’t make sense to me. If your riser distance equalled your going distance, your staircase would be 45 degrees and would be uncomfortably steep. 37 to 41 is more usual. 

 

He means that the rise and run should be consistent throughout the stair, not that they should be the same as each other.

[ProDave]

10 hours ago, sruk said:

 

In England the min width is 800mm the landing is good with regs I just want to know what people think of it practically and comfort wise.

Just read the regs carefully.  In Scotland, the half or quarter landing has to be at least as wide as the stair, so 900 stair and 840mm half landing would fail.

[sruk]

3 hours ago, markc said:

36 degrees is really shallow for a domestic stair, making some risers 1mm different seems odd, does the calculator not have the option for .5 mm.

as this is an existing property you have a little more “tolerance” and your floor coverings could easily explain a few mm at the bottom. 
is the 900 overall? Or tread width? If it’s tread width then the landing should be the same or bigger, but if it’s 900 overall then taking out the stringers thickness puts you very close to the 840. The jutting out first step after landing shouldn’t encroach on the landing so that could do with moving forward or being hidden by a newelpost.

184 rise to 190 is a big jump, it would be worth a moch up with some scaff boards to try a short section.

if 36 degrees is shallow what am i doing wrong here? according to what i found in the forums 264mm going is not much and 178mm rise is not very shallow, i am confused

 

the calculator does give me a .6mm (178.6mm) for each rise but it then lists the height each step should be along the run and in that lists there are no partial mm and if calculated some are 178 and some 179.

 

with regards to the tolerances you are right I might have some play there.

 

the 900mm is the tread, i get the point.

 

here are the 2 options from the calculator, i highlighted the relevant in red

 

 

Many thanks for your help

 

[sruk]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Just read the regs carefully.  In Scotland, the half or quarter landing has to be at least as wide as the stair, so 900 stair and 840mm half landing would fail.

many thanks, I get the point will do it 900x900

[markc]

Loads of existing. Buildings have smaller half landings, 

back to stair angle, domestic max is 42 deg, commercial is 38 deg.

I’m 6-3 and I find any stairs lower that 38 deg hard work because I’m always deciding between short or double stepping. Our office main stairs are 37 degrees and loads of people trip on them but maybe because tread is on the min side.

if I was designing and building a stair for myself I would be looking at 38.5-40 degrees for comfort or maybe down to 38 if the stair was going for aesthetics

[jack]

2 hours ago, markc said:

if I was designing and building a stair for myself I would be looking at 38.5-40 degrees for comfort or maybe down to 38 if the stair was going for aesthetics

 

I know you aren't saying otherwise, but stair angle isn't the whole story. You could have 10 steps over, say, a 2.6m total stair height, but the 260mm rise would be completely unworkable even at 38.5 degrees.

 

There are some interesting notes on the topic of stair comfort here.

 

Personally, I think that if you stick with commercial, rather than residential, guidelines, you won't go far wrong.

[SimonD]

Just to add to this thread that it isn't just the rise + going and angle of the stairs but also the rise + going relationship that matters. This relationship is defined as 2R + G (R = Rise, G = Going) which needs to be between 550 - 700.  Edit:  @jack kind of just got in there first I've noticed!

 

If you're making the stairs yourself, I'd recommend getting a book on it. This one is pretty good - Simply Stairs: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Mark-Milner/Simply-Stairs--The-Definitive-Handbook-for-Stair-Builders/16592144. It has a very helpful chart, plus it's a pretty straightforward task to make up a basic spreadsheet like the attached that I made up to help me build stairs. (it's not annotated so you need to familiarise yourself with the terminology and formulas to make sense of it to know what matters!).

 

 

Staircase calcs.ods

Edited April 21, 2022 by SimonD

[sruk]

2 hours ago, jack said:

 

I know you aren't saying otherwise, but stair angle isn't the whole story. You could have 10 steps over, say, a 2.6m total stair height, but the 260mm rise would be completely unworkable even at 38.5 degrees.

 

260mm is the going, the rise i am considering is around 178mm

[jack]

8 minutes ago, sruk said:

260mm is the going, the rise i am considering is around 178mm

 

I wasn't referring to your measurements, I was just giving a hypothetical example of why there's more to stair design than stair angle. The 260mm I referred to is just the floor-to-floor height (2.6m) divided by the number of rises (10), in my example.

[sruk]

5 hours ago, markc said:

Loads of existing. Buildings have smaller half landings, 

back to stair angle, domestic max is 42 deg, commercial is 38 deg.

I’m 6-3 and I find any stairs lower that 38 deg hard work because I’m always deciding between short or double stepping. Our office main stairs are 37 degrees and loads of people trip on them but maybe because tread is on the min side.

if I was designing and building a stair for myself I would be looking at 38.5-40 degrees for comfort or maybe down to 38 if the stair was going for aesthetics

many thanks, you might not notice me from high up there 😉 but i now understand, next step is to measure again my existing steps which are extremely comfortable to make sure i did not miscalculate the going, will do so next week and run the calculations again. many thanks for your help.

[sruk]

2 hours ago, jack said:

There are some interesting notes on the topic of stair comfort here.

 

many thanks, seems the like my current shallow degree is based on the going part, will have to remeasure my existing staircase and see (the after works the height will increase by approx 27mm so cannot use the exact same measurements for the new one).

Many thanks for the link, was a eye opener

Edited April 21, 2022 by sruk
put my response in the quote section!

[sruk]

2 hours ago, SimonD said:

Just to add to this thread that it isn't just the rise + going and angle of the stairs but also the rise + going relationship that matters. This relationship is defined as 2R + G (R = Rise, G = Going) which needs to be between 550 - 700.  Edit:  @jack kind of just got in there first I've noticed!

 

If you're making the stairs yourself, I'd recommend getting a book on it. This one is pretty good - Simply Stairs: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Mark-Milner/Simply-Stairs--The-Definitive-Handbook-for-Stair-Builders/16592144. It has a very helpful chart, plus it's a pretty straightforward task to make up a basic spreadsheet like the attached that I made up to help me build stairs. (it's not annotated so you need to familiarise yourself with the terminology and formulas to make sense of it to know what matters!).

 

Staircase calcs.ods 14.09 kB · 1 download

 

thanks for that, when I said i will be building it myself i was really overstating... I will get an engineer to design the centre spine and a metal works company to manufacture it... my part will be cutting/shaping and polishing 80mm thick wooden blocks before screwing it onto the metal spine.

thanks for the ods file too.

Edited April 21, 2022 by sruk

[Simplysimon]

don't forget to measure the actual rise on site, it may be different to drawn size

[sruk]

2 minutes ago, Simplysimon said:

don't forget to measure the actual rise on site, it may be different to drawn size

the rise i am certain is 184, what playing on my mind is that the going might be 240mm and for some reason i am working with 260mm. thanks

Edited April 21, 2022 by sruk

[TerryE]

11 hours ago, jack said:

 

He means that the rise and run should be consistent throughout the stair, not that they should be the same as each other.

You can take smooth changes to the going (we have them on our staircases which have smooth  90° turns), but even the smallest variation in rise is a real trip hazard:

 

[sruk]

I measured my current one again, its old carpet and a toddle loose so its not possible to get accurate measurements, however the stairs vary between 260-264mm (inc nosing) going and 182-188mm rise, (bottom and 1st step from qt landing are 193mm) the big difference between this and the one i plan to build is the current one is carpeted therefore i think its a soft landing whereas the new one will be wood, I am not sure if this makes a difference and if i should therefore lower each a few mm?

 

The top stair is 190mm, no 1 has ever tripped (since i replaced the carpet on the landing (increasing the height) ~9 months ago) maybe because there is a visual difference (see image)

 

the other issue i found is when measuring at first I did not really pay attention to the nosing as the carpet on the rise looked like its only a few mm in from the top small enough to be ignored, however now that i measured nosing to nosing i found that my nosing is around 22mm giving me an actual going of 242mm vs what i thought before to be 264mm.

 

according to the calculator if i were to use the nose to nose measurement at 242mm and rise at 189.5 it will result and a 38.1 degree, i cannot use the same for the new steps as total rise will be slightly more, to achieve 38.1 degrees I can use 244 going (no nosing) and 191.1 rise (R*2+G=626.2) th4 going will be very close to the current only the rise will be more, not sure if going with a rise of 191.1mm will be comfortable.

 

 

Thank you all once again for your amazing help.

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by sruk