For the construction of an indoor staircase, even if you start from the same measurement data, design, safety or ease of access are all factors that can radically change the final result. By using a staircase design service you can see the final result before it's too late. With this service you can view the staircase in 3D format and assess, before it is built, whether the chosen model fits the style of the house, whether it fits in the dedicated space, whether it is easy to go up and down. This kind of service is offered by Dipproject, experts in wooden staircase design and certified members of the International Ladder Manufacturers Association in the USA.
Elements to consider when designing a staircase
At first glance it all looks simple; after all, it's a simple ladder! What can be so difficult that it takes a project to get from level A to level A+1? And yet, it's not that simple. There are laws, rules and regulations that need to be followed to make the ladder easy and safe to use.
A poorly constructed staircase, if not leading to immediate accidents, over time can lead to real health problems, back or knee pain. The way a staircase is made starts with human anatomy. It determines how high the riser should be, how wide the steps should be, how high the banister should be or how high you should have the ladder from the staircase to the ceiling.
The French architect, mathematician and military man who thought up the first calculation formula for stairs Nicolas-Francois Blondel who lived in the 17th century. Formula
2H (cm) + l (cm) = 59....65 cm
where H is the height of the riser and l is the width of the step, is still valid today and is used in the Romanian standard governing stair construction. A step must be wide enough to allow the foot to be placed safely, and the riser height must be chosen so as not to overstrain the knees and spine.
Also important when calculating the steps are the length of the step, the height of the current hand from the stair level, the distance from the stair to the ceiling. These are also determined by human anatomy. The step length is calculated according to the number of people moving on the staircase. It will be narrower in a single-family house and wider in a block of flats where the staircase must be accessed by at least 2 streams of people. The handrail should be positioned in such a way that it is really useful, that you can easily grab hold of it and that it supports you if you trip.
Staircase design - regulations to be taken into account
All of the above and more are, as I said, regulated. Even though they are very similar, each country has its own rules. NP 063-02: The "Standard on performance criteria specific to ramps and stairs for pedestrian traffic in buildings" is the one that regulates the construction of stairs in Romania. It was approved in December 2002 by Order 1994 issued by the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Tourism. According to this regulation, an ordinary staircase must have a riser height of 16.6-17.5 cm and a tread width of 29 cm. The result of Blondel's formula should be in the range 62...64 cm, with 63 cm being the optimum value. A staircase with a riser below 16.5 is a low staircase. However, architects recommend it to make the staircase accessible to the elderly, the sick and children.
It is recommended that the step length for a single-flow staircase should be a minimum of 90 cm, and for a 2-flow staircase a minimum of 120 cm. At the balustrade with handrails, the handrails should be positioned 10 cm apart so that a child's head cannot pass between them.
In the standard there are indications on the strength and stability of the ladder, operational safety and fire safety, noise protection. All these specifications and the exact measurements made on site by the person designing or building the ladder are the data on which the design is based. At this stage you can see what is possible and what is not, how safe the ladder is, how well it fits in the house. Only on the basis of the design can you get a staircase that is safe and suitable for the style of the house.
Dipproject can "get rid" of all your calculations. At the end you will have the project, templates for execution or programs that can be adapted on the CNC.
Dipproject comes with offer to do all this design work, both for those with small traditional workshops and for those who already have high-performance machinery (CNC-uri) and tend towards mass production. It is based on long experience in ladder design and a very thorough knowledge of legislation.
Design specialists can calculate the geometry of the staircase with construction details, sketching for presentation to the end customer, calculating and marking elements for production, thus taking over a time-consuming task. Help comes as early as the measurement phase. You will receive a form that will help you to make accurate and sufficient measurements. Based on them the best and safest option will be chosen and the project will be drawn up. You will then receive it in 3D version to present it to your client and get acceptance.
Once everything is settled and approved, you will receive, in addition to the project, an important help in production, depending on the equipment and capabilities of the workshop. Those using traditional woodworking machinery will receive exact templates with all the processing details. The 1:1 scale templates will be able to be glued to the panel and then the exact cutting done. They will have all the details of drilling, milling, cutting inscribed, Searching or other operations that need to be performed to build the ladder.
If your workshop is equipped with computer-aided machining equipment, Dipproject will provide you with DXF files of the staircase design with all the related details so that you can convert them using your existing post-processor. This way you will have all the data entered into the "head" of your CNC which will do the machining without any further operations.
Design is not a fad but a service that gives you peace of mind
I had the opportunity to see a house built by the owner - an engineer by profession, but not a builder - on the principle that "I know best how my house should be". It was a holiday home, not too fancy, but after he finished it, there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't say something he would have done differently.
Design is not a fad, something invented so that others have work to do. It is a very important activity and stage in the process of building a staircase, which must be done by specialised people. Especially when working for the client. If you take risks for yourself and bear the consequences, the client you are working for should benefit from work that ensures complete safety. In the case of stairs, this safety is achieved on the basis of precise measurements and a professionally executed project. Don't cut corners where it counts. Sooner or later they will pay off.
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