All about the staircase
Mummy: “Michelle stop sitting on the stairs and go to your room.”
Michelle: “Mummy, it’s not stairs, it is a step!!”
And she stomps off.
We have all fallen victims of this. Stairs are a complete flight of steps. Staircase is one or more flights leading from one floor to another, stair flight is a run of stairs or steps between landings. Stair is one step in a flight of stairs.
Typical length of a tread is one is 25cm or 10 inches and 1 inch thick. Staircases come in materials such as wood, glass, stainless steel, wrought iron, concrete, marble, granite, the design chosen can take it from ordinary to a work of art.
Marble creates an element of luxury whilst wood creates comfort, warmth and give the impression of quality and completeness thus fitting into any interior.
Steel or iron offers many possibilities in terms of style and finish because it is versatile. They have many possibilities in terms of finish and when powder coated, offer many choices in colours.
Features of a good staircase
• It should reduce the risk of slip, falls and trips. Carpets can reduce the severity of injury or treads at the tip of each step.
• It should have a hand rail to help user steady themselves when loss of balance occurs.
• There should be a consistency of height of the steps to prevent over step (when the foot toes catch the riser of next step above) or under step (when the foot catches the next step down). So the user has already pre-determined the next step based on the first two steps they took, thereby tripping.
• They should have guards. Any staircase with a drop of more than 600m should have guards. It should be strong enough to support weight and tall enough to stop people falling over. To prevent children slipping through any gap in the guarding should be small enough to prevent a 100mm diameter sphere from passing through.
• Railings. These are not just safety features they can make a design statement. They can be the centre piece of a home.
Be safe with stairs
• If you have stairs, they should have balusters as a safety feature. A handrail is attached to steps by balusters. Balusters can also be a centre of beauty.
