Limitations Created by Building Codes – Minimum and Maximum Step Measurements

here's a question I would like to address I've been getting a lot of emails probably over the past year people asking me for advice on building stairways that are going to be unsafe and there are reasons why we have building codes and there are reasons why in some cases you won't be able to build a set of stairs there the design isn't going to allow you to build the stairs a lot of thought needs to go into a set of stairs or a new house I mean I had one sent to me recently where someone was going to build a set of stairway a set of stairs over a bathroom and it was like how are you gonna get into the bathroom and this how are you gonna use the bathroom and it looks fine on a piece of paper if you're looking at it flat but you build it and you got a problem so let's go ahead and get started and see if I can't to help you out here with providing you with the limitations for most building departments and again you would need to check with your local building Department the measurements that I'm providing you with are from a book that some building departments use and others don't so the total rise maximum is seven and three-quarters when I was installing stairs years ago it was eight inches eight inches maximum you could not have a riser taller than this this is going to provide you with your first limitation seven and three-quarters is maximum rise on a residential stairway on a public stairway it might be seven inches the tread width is going to be ten inches minimum this isn't a maximum now this is a minimum and the minimum width on a stairway is going to be three foot if you're going to be on a public stairway or maybe in a commercial building it might be forty four inches I'm focusing on a residential residential construction here and again these measurements might not be the same as the ones I'm providing you with by your local building department now these steps are simply going to be part of this errors that are going to be uniform the same on every single every single tread and riser here's a good example of a stairway that is the minimum length and the maximum height it has 12 steps and 13 risers and if we divide 13 into this we're going to get 7 and 3/4 for each riser which is our maximum and this right here we would have 12 steps at 10 inches and that would be our minimum so this is the minimum length maximum height this type of stairway could not be used on a floor that was going to be an inch taller or a stairway that was going to be an inch smaller in length it's going to create problems for our for the building codes that we're working with so I hope that makes sense and if it doesn't then it's time for some more math so here goes 10 inches each step is 10 inches here and if we were only going to have a 4 step stairway we would need 40 inches or 3 foot 4 if we had 39 inches then we would have a problem let's take a set of stairs that's a little longer 6 steps is going to be 60 inches or 5 feet we cannot and I repeat we cannot put a five-step stairway in a residential building that's going to be less than 5 feet long and again these are the the questions I keep getting sent to me over and over again somebody wants me to help them design a stairway how do I do it you can't do it you can build whatever stairs you what they're just not going to meet local building codes which of course if they don't meet local building codes and someone falls on your stairway someone trips because your stair treads are ooh small and your risers are too high or just one of those you have risers that are too high but your treads fine or you have a tread that's too small but your risers fine you could be in for a heck of a lawsuits and this is what I'm trying to help you out here pay attention building codes are there for a reason and if they make sense and these make sense to me I have built stairways with small steps and they are dangerous here's an example of a stairway that would not meet local building codes if they were ten inch minimum steps and of course we can see that they have seven and three-quarter inch risers here's an example of the risers eight and a quarter inches that would not make your local building inspector happy now the last part of the video I went ahead and put eight in the quarter and eight and a half inch eight and a quarter inch riser eight and a half inch steps because this is actually what inspired me to make the video it's actually a question that was sent to me and of course the individual was going to build the set of stairs anyway that was going to be fine and something like this if you do build something like this make sure that you have a handrail on both sides that is agrippa below and rail and make sure that it is securely fastened to the wall so that when somebody does fall and trust me on a stairway like this you might not fall walking up but this is going to be an extremely difficult stairway to walk down and that's when of course we that's wood we run into our awakening hey wait a minute but at least if you have two handrails one on each side you're gonna have something to hold on to now would this make sense for an attic you know hey I'm gonna so I'm gonna store stuff up there so this means you're gonna be carrying stuff with both hands up there so that you can store it now you're gonna create even a bigger safety hazard so anyway I hope this helps some of you out there who are having a difficult time figuring out how to fit smaller stair into smaller spaces I'm telling you if it cannot be done don't do it you

Channel: stairbuilding

Views: 74,243

Rating: 4.8086123 out of 5

Keywords: building codes, stair building, stairway design, steps, treads, limitations, measurements, architecture, small spaces, maximum height, minimum width, education

Id: wAlLJ8bCdvU

Length: 7min 3sec (423 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 13 2018