Temporary Stairs - Cut and Join two Halfs

[NewToAllOfThis]

Hi All,

Looking for temporary set of stairs, seen some on ebay but all need collecting and they are too long as a single staircase.

Wondering if I cut them in half and then join them either with long strips of wood or metal plates.

Is it a silly idea or has anyone else taken this approach.

[recoveringbuilder]

Don’t know what you would be paying for them from eBay but you would get a set from jewson or some of the other bms for around £120 and they would deliver.

[PeterW]

I wouldn’t want to trust something chopped in half - it will be as strong as the screws holding it together. Howdens do a set for £110 or so, you’ll get half that back flogging them when you finish 

[ProDave]

If you do try the cut and shut idea, at least put a couple of props or legs directly under the joint so the integrity of the joint is not so critical.

[Conor]

Was in this position as well. Builder was going to hire me a set for £250 for "as long as I need it", or I could have bought flat pack stairs for about £300. But as the roof isn't on yet, they'd get ruined. In the end I've just ordered 5 lengths of 215x50mm timber for £100 and I'm going to make a set myself some evening. 

[ToughButterCup]

11 hours ago, NewToAllOfThis said:

...

Is it a silly idea or has anyone else taken this approach.

 

No. 

But be careful, as yo mamma say.....

[Adam2]

We have stairs made from scaffold boards. Built right they are strong enough so if you do buy and then cut use long boards along the joint on sides with decent fixings.

If you need scaffold boards we found cheapest was ringing round scaffold companies 10 each delivered.

 

[Russdl]

On 23/03/2021 at 21:48, NewToAllOfThis said:

they are too long as a single staircase.

To transport I guess you mean?
 

We transported a full staircase many miles on roof bars on our diminutive Yeti* without a hitch. 
 

(That’s a car not a snowman thingy)

 

Just to add, the roof bars were generic £30 or so, the staircase was free from a fellow (ex)Buildhubber, and the petrol was probably £12 or so. 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Russdl
Costings

[ProDave]

11 hours ago, Russdl said:

To transport I guess you mean?
 

We transported a full staircase many miles on roof bars on our diminutive Yeti* without a hitch. 
 

(That’s a car not a snowman thingy)

 

Just to add, the roof bars were generic £30 or so, the staircase was free from a fellow (ex)Buildhubber, and the petrol was probably £12 or so. 

Now go and read the car handbook and see what the max roof loading should have been   My guess is the rear overhang might have been pushing the law a little as well.

[Russdl]

@ProDave I checked the handbook before the epic trip, but was unable to find a set of scales to weigh the staircase. It wasn’t massively heavy so I took a punt, seemed to go ok. 
 

I also checked the overhanging regulations, not exceeding 1m, no problem. As I opted to put the stairs centrally on the roof bars (crazy, I know) the overhang was around 0.5m. 

[Gus Potter]

On 23/03/2021 at 21:48, NewToAllOfThis said:

Hi All,

Looking for temporary set of stairs, seen some on ebay but all need collecting and they are too long as a single staircase.

Wondering if I cut them in half and then join them either with long strips of wood or metal plates.

Is it a silly idea or has anyone else taken this approach.

What is your floor to floor height and available pitch? Are these intended to be replaced by say an oak stair later or will you fill in the temp stairwell later on?

 

If you are fitting them in the final stair opening then as a self builder you could go the American / Canadian way where they fit the stair carcase for the builders to tramp up and down. It seasons during this time. Then when all the builders have gone you get essentially the Cabinet maker / French polisher" in to over clad / do the hand rail with the high end (veneer) stuff right at the end when all the dust has gone.

 

Practically it means that if you run out of cash for a bit you can still get the house finished and you just pay for the stair carcase and a basic hand rail boarded below. There is a wee bit of a rub in that if you get a difficult BC officer they may argue that all the rises are not the same. You can put a bit of feathered ply down top and bottom to create a temporary landing so everyone is happy?

 

Also, if you get a dog / Zebra and let it have the run of the upstairs you can review after a few months how much you want really want to spend on a solid high quality timber stair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[James94]

I like the way these have built theirs.

Regards  James

[NewToAllOfThis]

Thanks to everyone who has commented.

I have discovered that the builders have numerous roof rafters left over, bit worried that they have not put all required in the roof !!

So I might try and build my own stairs, the video above method looks very robust.

I also have some 22mm chipboard flooring left, would this be strong enough for the treads if they were around 850mm wide.

[James94]

Would think that would be to weak.

Regards  James

[Ed21]

I've built a few open plan and it's easy. 
Last one I did was in a tight spot and in the end was built using 140mm x 48mm PSE
due to the rake needed.

If you have room and an less  aggressive rake the treads can be wider. . 

Measure accurately first then mark it all out on the floor (usually outside).
That gives the main length and whatever width of step you want. 
Then it's just a case of working out the angle and number of steps to get the timber order right. 
All cuts clean on a chop saw and to fix treads, bit of a scrap wood jig to ensure the angle and holes
are right and drill two holes for each step, counterdrill a shallow hole and use wood bolts into
the treads. Bolthead gets sunk in and if it's less permanent some plugs cut from scrap glued
in and made flush makes the bolt heads go away.  I also whacked a glued dowel in there as a just
in case but TBH didn't need it.     

This can be made and assembled outside or anywhere for that matter so moving around or
in bits to get in in place is easy.  

Takes a couple of hours and a cuppa to measure and work it all out and once the wood has
arrived a day if that to make.

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Ed21

[Gus Potter]

1 hour ago, James94 said:

Would think that would be to weak.

Regards  James

 

Yes is does look that way but the stringer is probably getting on some 250 + mm deep. The treads really stop the stringers from twisting and thus reduces deflection. Also, as the stairs are at an angle unlike just say a floor joist some of the load component on the tread acts as an axial load down the stringer so it is not subject to as much bending force. Timber is quite good at resisting axial loads.

 

Think about a ladder up against a wall, when it is really steep it does not bend much as your weight goes down the length of the ladder. Put same ladder flat and walk over it it will bend a good bit. A stair is a "halfway" house.

 

Yes James, once that timber has sat for a while, dried out and stabalised to the prevelant moisture content you could think about over clading / veneer.

 

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Gus Potter
feel like it

[Conor]

Made these stairs today. £100 of timber and about 6 hours. 3400mm going and 3000mm rise, 900mm tread width. Made with 225x50mm cls. The lack of a protractor and basic trigonometry skills easily added two hours to the build time. Might be able to repurpose them for the basement if they survive. 

 

(Yes, handrail etc to be added)

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Conor

[Gus Potter]

Well done Conor.

 

Yes get the hand rail on and don't over load them.

 

Let us know how "bouncy" they are once you have used them for a bit. Once you get the hang of it you can do some cracking stairs going the over cladding route.

[MortarThePoint]

On 02/04/2021 at 20:42, Conor said:

Made these stairs today

Look awesome! Did you use Coach Screws or woodscrews (6mm)?) to attach the treads to the stringers?

 

How have you attached it at the top?

 

I've bought some 8x2 for my stringers and 6x2 for treads. I'd like to go with Galvanised treads as that was my plan for the garage but I am re thinking that because:

1. They have doubled in price so would cost £400+fixings for the garage stair
2. As they are open any dirt will fall straight through to whatever is underneath. I could address using something underneath (Perspex?) but more cost

They bolt to the stringer quite easily though.

[Onoff]

My stairs method was to make a jig and have the treads sat in a routed out housing. This is just a couple of tread section left over from the original tree house stairs. Glued and screwed, it was super strong:

 

 

 

[MortarThePoint]

On 27/03/2021 at 23:19, Gus Potter said:

Yes is does look that way but the stringer is probably getting on some 250 + mm deep

 

The stair in the video is a pretty low angle (30-35deg?) so that makes its life harder. There are space saving stairs online (57deg) with just 142x27 stringers but that seems too flimsy to me.

 

My intuition is telling me that the moment and stress ends up along the lines of considering a joist with length equivalent to the horizontal projection (L_joist=L_stringer/COS[angle]=h_stair/TAN[angle]) of the stair and joist height equivalent to the vertical depth of the stringer (so h_joist=h_stringer/COS[angle]). Is that correct?

 

If that is correct, the equivalent joist to the video would be about L_joist=2.4m/TAN[30] = 4.1m, h_joist=225mm/COS[30]=289mm. NHBC tables don't go up to 289mm, but extrapolating each 25mm step adds 0.45m of span (gk=0.25, spacing=600mm) so that would suggest (for C16) 47x295 joists would be good for a 5.37m span @600mm spacing and live load of 1.5kN/m2. That's a UDL, so a centre loaded equivalent would be half the UDL loading so 5.37m * 0.6m * 1.5kN/m2 / 2 = 2.4kN per joist. I know the treads are wider than 600mm, but this attempts to understand the point (tread) loading. As there are two stringers, it would double that to 4.8kN load capacity. 

 

Unlike a joist the loading is much more aggressive due to the bouncing motion of people climbing the stair. Think of a 100kg builder with a 25kg bag of plaster under each arm playing trampoline in the middle of our stair. 

 

For the space saver, the tables don't go that thin, but can scale:

142mm/COS[57]=260mm. 27x260 should be good for 1.5kN/m2*(27/38)=1kN/m2 and a span of about 4m(!) where as the stairs projection is probably more like 2.4/TAN[57]=1.6m. Does that make the equivalent joist point load capacity around (4m / 1.6m) * 1kN/m2 * (1.6m * 0.6m) / 2 = 1.2kN. As there are two stringers, it would double that to 2.4kN load capacity.

 

All nonsense or vaguely right? 🤠

[MortarThePoint]

55 minutes ago, Onoff said:

My stairs method was to make a jig and have the treads sat in a routed out housing.

Nice! I think that's the proper way to do it but takes more time and I expect the routing weakens the stringer slightly.

You can get brackets that go under stair treads but they are crazy expensive. I wondered about a bit of batten screwed and glued to the stringer (see below). The nice thing about the video approach is that the blocks transfer the load down to the next tread and so on. Doubles the stringer wood though.

Edited April 7, 2023 by MortarThePoint

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, MortarThePoint said:

I expect the routing weakens the stringer slightly.

 

Doubt it, with loads of modern wood glue.

 

You can buy proper stair jigs for doing exactly what I did. 

 

I also had 3 lengths of studding under the top, middle and bottom treads.

[Conor]

4 hours ago, MortarThePoint said:

Look awesome! Did you use Coach Screws or woodscrews (6mm)?) to attach the treads to the stringers?

 

How have you attached it at the top?

 

I've bought some 8x2 for my stringers and 6x2 for treads. I'd like to go with Galvanised treads as that was my plan for the garage but I am re thinking that because:

1. They have doubled in price so would cost £400+fixings for the garage stair
2. As they are open any dirt will fall straight through to whatever is underneath. I could address using something underneath (Perspex?) but more cost

They bolt to the stringer quite easily though.

6x100mm screws. Later one of the treads failed so I then fitted 200mm strips of roofing battens under each one, with a couple 50mm screws. Much more solid. At the top I had a vertical riser screwed between the strings and had that screwed in to the steel beam with 6.5mm X 70mm roofing screws.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Conor

[MortarThePoint]

6 minutes ago, Conor said:

Later one of the treads failed

 Sounds hairy, hopefully at the bottom