How to comply with UK stair building regulations

Whether you’re planning a completely new staircase or just a refurbishment of your existing stair balustrade, you need to ensure that your stairs meet current UK building regulations. Many older stairs may not meet today’s standards, so installing new handrails, spindles, and posts will give you the opportunity to update your staircase in terms of safety and appearance. Here is a brief summary of the main points related to private home stairs that you should keep in mind:

stair step

The incline of the ladder, or slope, is very important for safety. Each step should be level and have the same rise (height) and run (depth). For example, you can’t have 190mm for the first four bands followed by 200mm for the rest, as it would be confusing for the user.

An exception to this rule is if there is a landing in the middle of the stair, in which case each stair section may be treated differently. However, this is not recommended.

These are the allowed measurements:

The maximum elevation or height for any step must be 220 mm, with the minimum being 150 mm.

Each step must have a minimum run, or depth, of 220mm and a maximum run of 300mm.

· The maximum inclination, or slope, should not exceed 42°.

Stair width

Believe it or not, there is no recommendation for the minimum width of a household staircase. However, to ensure that your stairs are pleasing to the eye and comfortable to use, it is best for the staircase to be at least 800mm wide, with the optimal recommended width being between 850mm and 950mm.

When it comes to loft conversions, the widely accepted minimum width is 600mm, although between 700mm and 750mm is recommended.

On stairs that change direction, each run is allowed to have a different width if necessary.

Ladder length

A flight of stairs can include up to 36 risers or steps in a straight line. After that, they should change direction by at least 30°. This is to break falls and prevent someone from falling too far to the bottom of the stairs.

landings

A landing can be a flat platform where the stairs change direction or part of the floor at the top or bottom of the stair. For safety, the landing must be at least as wide and deep as the narrowest part of the stairs. All landings must be completely level, except the ground floor, where a slight slope (up to 1:60) is allowed. In addition, no door should be able to rotate less than 400mm from the front of any step.

head room

There is a minimum clearance requirement of 2m at all points, both inside and outside the stairs. In the case of loft conversions, the free space available will comply with building regulations as long as the height at the center of the stair is at least 1.9 m and does not reduce to less than 1.8 m at the side of the stair. ladder.

Some building control officers can be lenient if you have real problems with your loft stairs, but you should always check with them before proceeding.

Railing

Your stairs must have handrails on at least one side if the stairs are less than 1m wide, and handrails on both sides if the stairs are wider. You do not need to put a handrail on the first two steps from the bottom, but after this point you should make sure there is a handrail on any open part of the stairs to protect people going up and down.

The height of the handrail should be between 900mm and 1000mm, measured from the step line to the top of the handrail. (The step line is an imaginary line drawn along the top of the steps that shows the slope of the stair from top to bottom.)

mind the gap

One of the most important standards, intended to protect young children and prevent falls, is that a 100mm sphere must not be able to fit through any opening in a ladder. This means that you need to ensure that the shafts or balusters are not spaced too far apart and that any wide spaces between open risers are fitted with riser bars to reduce the size of the openings.

Stair railings should also be designed so that children are not encouraged to climb them. For this reason, old ‘ranch style’ railings with horizontal stair rails should be replaced with vertical spindles.

Please note that these rules only apply to households in England and for the most part Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own set of building regulations.