Ideal Ceiling, Hall, Stairs and Landing Dimensions

[Dan F]

Hi,

 

Building regulations specify minimum sizes for these, but that doesn't mean the sizes specified are comfortable or ideal.  What are the recommended sizes for the following in a decent sized contemporary detached house (350m2)?  The values in brackets are the values we currently have specified, wondering if based on experiences anyone would tweak any of these, or if there is anything that doesn't match up.?

 

- Ground floor ceiling (2500mm)

- Ground floor entrance hall (1900mm)

- Secondary ground floor hallways (1100mm)

- First-floor ceiling (2400mm)

- First-floor landings (1100mm)
- Stair width (900cm)

- Stair going (290mm)

- Stair rise (205mm)

 

Thanks!

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Dan Feist
wrong dimensions

[Mr Punter]

You cannot use the combination of rise and going. 2r+g must be between 550 and 700

Reduce the rise and add another tread or two.

2400 for first floor ceilings is a bit mean.

[ultramods]

In general it really depends on the style of house you are building, for example if you are building a replica Edwardian style house is 2850 going to be high enough - probably not.

Also in a room that isn't particularly wide, such as an ensuite, 2850 might make the room proportions look odd as the ceiling is too high.

 

When you see some of the houses on grand designs and see people standing in large open plan areas, some of the ceiling heights must be 4+ metres high, however the room looks in proportion.

 

With my house which is similar height to yours, I have a large-ish open plan area 6 metres x 12 metres, the ceiling height is 2700, which is the max we could get away with in terms of planning (taking the overall height of the house into consideration). I certainly don't think it's too low, however I would have like it to be a bit higher.  We do have some double height spaces which do help the space feel more special.

 

On the first floor again the ceiling are at a maximum height that planning would allow of 2400 (taking the overall height of the house into consideration). Ideally I would have liked to have around 2700 in the  the larger rooms, and then possibly brought the ceiling height down to 2400 in some of the smaller ensuites.

 

The stair width is 900, I thought it was going to be 1000 wide, however I mis-read the dimensions (it's a cantilevered stair and 10mm is hidden within the supporting wall. If you can I would go for a wider stair than 900.

 

If you haven't done so already visiting some similar sized/styled show/friends + family homes is a good idea to try and appreciate the different dimensions.Take a laser measure long to quickly take some measurements.

 

Another compromise I had to make with our house was the reduce the roof pitch to gain the extra height in the ground floor, this was also done in combination with lowering the foundation level on the plot.

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by ultramods

[Dan F]

@Mr Punter  @ultramods  Oops. It seems I measured a couple of things incorrectly from the SketchUp model.

 

- The rise is actually 205mm (which would work)

- The ground floor ceiling is actually 2500mm.

 

The largest room we have is a kitchen/breakfast room at 7400x5400mm, but that's because we decided not to go for open plan and instead have separate kitchen/dining/family areas inter-connected via sliding doors.  We are somewhat limited by planning due to ridge height and we have gone for a contemporary design with a low-pitched roof rather than a traditional design with dormers.  I'm assuming 2500mm wouldn't be bad at all, but closer to 2700mm might be slightly better? 

 

Stair width was my main concern also, I thought 900mm external was maybe a bit mean, given the hallway is 3800x3300 (with a void of 3800x2200). Think I'll try to get this increased to 1000mm external.

 

We've done a lot of comparing of room sizes with laser measure already, but it's harder to do this with landing width, stair dimensions and ceiling heights without living in a space with same dimensions thus my question here ?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[ProDave]

We have gone the other way with ceilings. 2440mm downstairs in all rooms makes it feel cosy, but upstairs one bedroom has about 3200 ceiling and the other gets the vaulted ceiling right up to the apex about 4000mm plus a mezanine.  A good way to use the roof space to give some wow factor.

 

Rectangular hall 1900mm wide by about 4000mm   900mm wide stairs (minimum in Scotland now)  Decent wide 1100mm half landing and big square landing upstairs.

 

We had to make the stairs an odd number of steps to fit in so ended up close to the maximum rise, but increased the going to make them less severe.

 

 

[ultramods]

@Dan Feist Have you looked at lowering the house level to gain some extra ceiling height as 2500 isn't that high for a house of 350 sqm.

 

I will take some photos of our hall tonight as it's 3300mm wide to let you can see the 900mm stair.

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[nod]

52 minutes ago, the_r_sole said:

2500mm for a ceiling height is a bit of a waste imo, you'd not really notice the difference between 2440 and 2500mm but one is a nice height for a sheet of plasterboard and the other is going to be a pain to finish - either go big (2650+) or just stick at the easy height!

A big, wide stair would be good in the right house, but it's hard to comment on that without a floor plan, if you've got a stair on show then it's better to do something interesting but if it's tucked away and only going to bedrooms then it might not be worth the investment... (I like 185-ish for a stair riser but it's a bit personal preference, 205 imo can feel a bit big, especially if it has older folk going up and down!)

Both are are a nice height for a sheet of plasterboard ?

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[AliG]

A floorplan would help.

 

2.7m would be expected downstairs in what is quite a large house. If you can get any double height space up into the loftspace that would also be nice. Standard plasterboard lengths are 2.4 and 2.7m hence these are the heights most builders use.

 

1m for the stair would be nicer, but 900mm is fairly standard and should be OK.  Make sure  it doesn't make your hallways and landings narrower. I use a rule that corridors etc should be a minimum of 1m wide to not feel cramped, but on a longer area you might want 1.1m.

 

For me the best thing to have in a first floor hallway is a window.

Edited April 22, 2019 by AliG

[vivienz]

Where are you located? Perhaps visit some real world examples to get a feel for things.  I'm in north Dorset if that's any help, and at the tail end of second fix with most of the decorating done - things look different again when they've been painted.

 

I should add that we have a contemporary open plan build and 2700 ceiling height downstairs.

Edited April 22, 2019 by vivienz

[Dan F]

Thanks for all the thoughts:

 

So, it looks like I have two things to talk to our architect about:

1) Potentially using 2700mm ceiling height downstairs instead fo 2500mm

2) Potentially using 1000mm wide stairs instead of 900mm.

 

@AliG We thought about opening up hall/landing and going up into the roof space for more effect, but seeing the 3D it didn't really work very well with the rest of the house (closed plan and single height).

@the_r_sole I'm not sure reducing rise will be possible (unless we also reduce going) as else stairs take up more room and impact the rest of the layout.

 

 

 

 

[the_r_sole]

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Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[nod]

1 hour ago, the_r_sole said:

 

not on some of the sites I've seen! 

2.4 2.5 2.7 stocked by most 

except the sheds