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Staircase - straight or turned?


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Need help and some opinions please. We are at design stage (a simple rectangular 3-storey 5-bed), need to figure out what to do with staircase.

As seen from plans below, Option A is straight staircase (which I'd love as it would allow to build in my dream pull-out understairs coats storage as seen on Houzz). However, it takes lots of space along the Reception wall, as compared to Option B (double-turn), and, most importantly, eats into DH's precious study room, reducing it significantly. 


Also a question of how convenient a double-turn stairs is? Never had one (currently dwelling in a bungalow with a straight stairs to loft room). I was always dreading of lifting some bulky, long and heavy items up a double-turn which would get stuck...

 

Stairbox tells us a double-turn is twice the cost of a straight one, which makes one think, but study space is more important....

Opinions, please!

 

Stairs Options A B.jpg

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Here is my stairbox double turn stair (handrails not on yet)

 

stairs_2.thumb.jpg.da31cfe756ba4c610e463b1e929bf60f.jpg

 

This is what I would do in your case.  A straight stair would seem odd as it would end nowhere and you would turn 180 degrees and walk back.

 

Make it with most of the stairs on the first flight, then just a few on the return flight, and you should still get a lot of usable hanging space under the stairs.

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I did this, but bought two short staircases and built the half landing myself, originally it was two quarter landing with a step between them but this was expensive and difficult to build, making my own half landing in situ was easy and fitting two short staircases to it a doddle.

 

 

 

 

F4E1D1F9-1956-4667-B3B6-E93B82DD7E40.jpeg

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Thank you both very much, your photos do help. 

@ProDave If yours is a Stairbox, which material did you go with? Trying to avoid a squeaky stairs (both me and DH are quite heavy).

@joe90 Yours looks lovely, and it's a great idea re landing!

 

What about carrying items upstairs, does it make it more complicated? (i.e, a sofa which cannot be disassembled, or a 1800 mm free-standing bath ?)

 

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Mine is stairbox as well, all oak and they supplied the oak for the landing floor and handrails. The spindles are from a foundry near hull. The top landing handrail is removable, along with the spindles to aid furniture going upstairs.

160B70D8-0AE9-4035-9C05-C78DCC15D52D.jpeg

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Just now, joe90 said:

Mine is stairbox as well, all oak and they supplied the oak for the landing floor and handrails. The spindles are from a foundry near hull. The top landing handrail is removable, along with the spindles to aid furniture going upstairs.

 

 

wow, I love this forum! It would never even occure to me that sections of handrail/spindlers can be removable! (Have not found this much wisdom in Homebuilder's Bible, but again I'm only on p.237...).

 

Thank you all for comments and pics, guys, it helps alot.

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21 hours ago, joe90 said:

Mine is stairbox as well, all oak and they supplied the oak for the landing floor and handrails. The spindles are from a foundry near hull. The top landing handrail is removable, along with the spindles to aid furniture going upstairs.

 

out of curiosity, how is the handrail fixed to allow removal?

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Right, I don’t do CAD but here is a sketch of the block I made for each newel post, it’s tapered in two directions so it needs no fixings like screws etc, a friction fit only. A corresponding hollow is created in each end of the hand rail so the rail can be lowered onto the blocks and tapped tight. I used oak, yes it would not take lots of dismantling but for the odd occasion I think it will work fine.  The spindles simply fit into square holes both top and bottom so fiddly to line up but again worth it IF you need it too.

 

 

5A742B4B-7B4C-4FF7-AAB0-998EEAE0309E.jpeg

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  • 1 month later...
On 25/11/2018 at 20:52, ProDave said:

Here is my stairbox double turn stair (handrails not on yet)

 

We are trying to order a staircase and it’s proving harder than I thought as it has a half landing. 

 

Stairbox say they won’t provide a half landing. Did you build your own? Or something else?

 

On 25/11/2018 at 21:20, joe90 said:

 

I did this, but bought two short staircases and built the half landing myself, originally it was two quarter landing with a step between them but this was expensive and difficult to build, making my own half landing in situ was easy and fitting two short staircases to it a doddle.

 

 

Any tips on making our own half landing please? Ours needs to be about 2.1m across, maybe 1m wide.... how many supports for the rectangular box?  Am I biting off too much here?

 

 

Edited by Weebles
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You design it on the stairbox website as a full turn half landing.

 

Yes they don't supply the half landing. They supply 2 short staircases.  I then framed the half landing in 6*2 (because that is what I had left over) and decked it with 22mm P5 chipboard.

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2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

You design it on the stairbox website as a full turn half landing.

 

Yes they don't supply the half landing. They supply 2 short staircases.  I then framed the half landing in 6*2 (because that is what I had left over) and decked it with 22mm P5 chipboard.

 

Makes sense. What did you do about the vertical  supports and fixing the half landing to the wall?

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With mine I used 6 x 2 as wall plate and joist sat on 2x2 at the ends and joist hangers to the wall, 6 x 2 between with joist hangers and oak floor planks to match the stairs (stair box supplied the oak flooring. A picture (or two) speaks a thousand words.

 

 

E48273E6-4FC4-4D44-8A09-30EA7D48168B.jpeg

0C2F57C4-2444-49FF-835B-37CCEE5583FF.jpeg

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44 minutes ago, Weebles said:

 

We are trying to order a staircase and it’s proving harder than I thought as it has a half landing. 

 

Stairbox say they won’t provide a half landing. Did you build your own? Or something else?

 

Any tips on making our own half landing please? Ours needs to be about 2.1m across, maybe 1m wide.... how many supports for the rectangular box?  Am I biting off too much here?

 

 

We also have a staircase and a flat landing just like @joe90 but we ordered ours through Jeldwen. They didn't supply the landing so our Joiner created one out of left over 22mm eggerboard. Along the same lines as @ProDave. The support for these cut to size boards are very similar to what is shown in the photo supplied by @joe90.

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46 minutes ago, Weebles said:

 

Makes sense. What did you do about the vertical  supports and fixing the half landing to the wall?

The 2 newel posts at the half landing go right down to the floor.  Not that it really matters as a 6 by 2 spans across the gap there (stairs are in a stairwell between 2 walls.

 

6 by 2 framing all round fixed with 2 big coach bolts to every upright of the timber frame. Then  4 by 2 spanning accross on joist hangers to support the floor.

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9 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

We also have a staircase and a flat landing just like @joe90 but we ordered ours through Jeldwen. 

 

Mine is also from Jeldwen with a flat landing (but a 90 degree turn rather than 180 degree). It came with the flat landing. 

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