Small wall at top of staircase

[crispy_wafer]

Xscuse the mess, while I'm thinking out loud, I'm thinking of building up a block wall at the top of this stair opening, instead of a timber balustrade and newels when I put in the finished staircase. 

 

I can cut and tie into the blockwork behind the plasterboard and mortar onto the short bit of block at the end of the steels, but I need to carry on the block to at least the end of the trimmer about 450mm that the staircase will bear onto, so it will carry on over the two steels a little.  What I don't know is if this blockwork would be structurally sound enough to satisfy BC, and whether it will stand up to being leant on etc, .  Height wise I'll build to 1m.  What options would there be for anchoring the block over the steels?  Would welding rebar onto the steels and using hollow blocks over with concrete fill be an option or is that bit overkill?

 

 

[Gus Potter]

I can see where you are coming from. Avoid blockwork. This is so fraught with tying difficulty. 

 

It sounds like you are ok with a solid baluster wall, it's going to look ugly! You should be able to much more easily sort this using a timber solution. 

 

As an experiment put two studs up , one attached to the wall to the left of the top of the stair stringer. One in line with the nose of the last tread, line each side and glue ply to that, give it a wobble! 

 

Check your BC drawing in case a diligent (no9t pragmatic)  BC officer pulls you up about future provision of a stair lift, if applicable to you.