Designing Your Staircase

Whether you’re looking for a new or replacement staircase, you’ll need to consider several different aspects, such as style, layout and regulations. Once you’ve had a look for some inspirational ideas on our gallery, we recommend measuring your space and trying out a few different layout options using the Online Staircase Designer. This tool will help visualise your complete staircase and ensure it complies with regulations.

Each and every staircase we manufacture is made to order to suit your space, so taking the time to consider this purchase could make all the difference, especially when it comes to the layout of the staircase.

If you're still a little unsure about your purchase, you can contact our technical advisors, who will be happy to assist with any queries you have.

Consider any 3-tread winders

Should you be looking to have a 3-tread winder in your flight, your staircase would need to have a width over strings of at least 750mm. We may be able to get something a little smaller to comply with UK Regs, however if you are able to go over 750mm that would be best. It’s a little tricky to explain why something below 750mm would not comply, but put simply you would not have enough of a ‘step’ as you walk around your newel post.

Width affects your going

One element that a few of our customers don’t realise is that your Width also affects the Total Going of your flight if you have a turn.This may seem a little odd but it is really quite simple, lets have a quick look at two staircases that are identical in every way other than their widths.

As you can see, the additional width of the flight increases the total going by the same amount. In other words, if you are trying to fit your staircase into a specific area of your house, it may be that adjusting your width will be the way to get it to fit.

A larger flight also has restrictions

If you are looking for a flight that is over one meter wide then this would present it’s own issues:

Open plan – If you are looking for an open plan flight we would urge you to stick at one meter or less. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that, structurally, the treads will be more stable under one meter. Also, partially due to the previous sentence, we would normally stock material for treads to be 1m wide, as such we would need to purchase additional materials specially for the flight which can come at a higher cost.

3-Tread winders – Again winders return to cause issues. This time the issue is that as a winder turn gets so large it suddenly isn’t classed as a winder tread but is more like a quarter landing! However the tread would not comply with the regulations regarding quarter landings and would therefore not comply with UK Regulations.

Finger width

Should you have something in the way of your staircase as you ascend the flight, for example a wall part way up or even the edge of your stairwell, and your balustrade is running next to it we would suggest taking the total opening width and taking 50mm off this to get the width of your staircase. The reason for this is pretty simple, we do not want you to trap your fingers! The additional 50mm provides enough room for your hand to flow past without getting snagged on anything.

Law of averages

Customers often ask us what the ‘normal’ width is for a staircase. It’s a hard one to answer as there is no norm with staircases, just customer preference and, in some cases, whatever fits. Our go to answer is usually what we have found to be the average width of flights that we sell. In our experience the average staircase comes out at 865mm, this is a comfortable width and would feel quite generous when walking up without taking up a massive amount of space. But, as noted above, the ideal width is really a matter of customer preference.