Planning to turn an attic into a bedroom, build a two-story addition, or perch a deck over your backyard? If you are, selecting the right staircase can be critical to your project's success. Beyond performing their purely practical duties as vertical passageways, most staircases serve as powerful design elements, presenting strong vertical line, rhythm, and pattern in graceful forms. Indoors and out, a stairway is an opportunity for creative, sculptural expression.

Unfortunately, most conventional stairs are relatively difficult and expensive to build— particularly hand-crafted, hardwood varieties. But there is hope. Though most high-quality stairs were once built on site by stair makers and craftsmen—and many still are—today, contractors and do-it-yourselfers can choose from a wide variety of high- quality pre-built and ready-to-assemble stairs that are both relatively affordable and easy to install.

Spiral Stairs
Of the many available pre-built and knock- down stair kits, spiral stairs are the most prevalent, no doubt because they're relatively economical in cost and space usage and because they can provide access away from the central "staircase core" of a house. They're ideal for reaching attic or basement rooms and for two-story additions. Spiral stairs are also popular for secondary access to rooms.

Manufacturers make spiral stairs in steel, aluminum, hardwoods, and combinations of these materials. Although some specialize in making only hardwood or metal, many companies make both. They typically offer a few basic designs that you can customize by selecting from a smorgasbord of treads, balusters, railings, and other options.

The range of options is vast. Hardwood stairs come in red oak, poplar, white oak, ash, walnut, mahogany, cherry, and other species. Steel and aluminum stairs come in a variety of finishes, from hot-dipped galvanized to custom color coatings. Treads may be flat or embossed steel, gratings, hardwood, rubber, or plywood, or steel base for carpeting. And so on. Boston Design Corporation even offers "illuminated stairs"—with one model, low-voltage lighting is radiated from the column under 3/4-inch frosted tempered glass treads.

When ordering a spiral stair, you usually choose the direction of twist (right hand railing up or left hand railing up) and you always specify the diameter. Most manufacturers offer several standard diameters: 4'; 4' 4"; 5'; 5' 4"; 6'; 6' 6", and larger (for safety, stairs 4 feet in diameter and smaller are not recommended).

One key choice you must make when selecting a spiral stair is whether to buy a knocked-down kit or a complete one-piece unit. Though kits are cheaper and considerably easier to ship, one-piece stairs tend to be more durable, are less likely to come apart or rust because they have fewer joints, are lighter in weight, and can be installed in as little as 10 minutes compared to three or four hours for a kit. One-piece units also afford a much broader choice in materials—particularly railings—because they're not constrained by the need for easy disassembly and shipping. (Many kits, for example, come only with flexible vinyl railings.)

Kits start at about $400 for small-diameter, standard steel models. One-piece steel stairs start at about $500. (Aluminum stairs are lighter to ship, but the material is much more expensive—they start at about $1,500. All-wood or metal-and-wood stairs run from $2,000 to $5,000 or more.)

Mark Anderson of Stairways, Incorporated, a manufacturer of both kits and one-piece units, estimates that freight from the company's Houston factory to New York would run about $160 for a kit or about $400 for a one-piece stair. Of course, if you intend to hire a couple of workers for three or four hours to install a kit, freight savings can be quickly swallowed up by labor costs.

Spiral Stairs of America ships completely assembled one-piece welded spiral stairs from its plant in Pennsylvania to "anywhere a truck or cargo ship will go," says a company spokesperson. For destinations where freight of a complete unit would be prohibitive, the company also sells stairs that are disassembled into two or three sections.

Straight Stairs
Some manufacturers build conventional hardwood stairs in sections, ready to connect end-to-end or at landings. Stair Systems, for example, manufactures unfinished, shop-assembled sections that can be installed by two workers in about an hour, using nothing more sophisticated than a hammer, level, and drill. Stock stair and railing designs, which can be delivered within two weeks, range from Colonial to contemporary. Most stairs cost from $1,000 to $2,000, but for custom-designed products, the sky is the limit.

With most pre-built hardwood stairs, the newel posts, railings, and balusters are pre-cut, prefitted, and numbered for easy reassembly. Visador has gone one step further with Wonderail, pre-assembled railing sections that can adjust to the slope of any stair.

Mylen manufactures stair systems that have a contemporary, very open look because treads are held only by single or paired stringers. Steel stringers are pre-welded to support oak, pine, or mahogany treads. You simply bolt the stringers to the header and floor and then bolt the treads to the stringers. Balusters bolt to the treads and handrail.

Circular Stairs
Most circular stairs are custom designed for high-end houses and installed during house construction. Some come as completely pre-assembled units. A.J. Stairs, for example, builds fine-quality hardwood stairs from any of several different hardwoods and ships them to the job site on a company truck with a factory-trained driver who supervises the installation, which takes about an hour. Curved walls are built by the job carpenter after the stair is installed.

Others, such as custom designs by Duvinage, are built at the factory and then disassembled into three or four large sections for shipping. Both these and one-piece circular stairs are extremely heavy and require a crane or some other type of lifting device at the job site.

Prices range from about $10,000 for a stock-sized hardwood circular stair to ten times that amount for highly custom units. It's difficult to use stock sizes—the house's floor-to-floor heights must be designed and built exactly to the stairs' specifications. The average for custom designs is about $25,000.

Code Considerations
Because the location of railings and balusters, width and depth of tread, and height of risers affect the ease and safety of using a stair, these dimensions are regulated by building codes. You must be sure that any stair you order will meet your local codes. Though many local codes adopt national standards, there is no single national code for all areas. Some local codes have different restrictions than accepted standards. To find out about local requirements, call your city or county building department.

The International Code Council, administered by the Building Officials and Code Administration (BOCA), allows maximum riser height of 7 3/4 inches, and a minimum tread depth of 9 inches plus a 1-inch nosing where solid risers are utilized. These dimensions are a revision of earlier, briefly adopted standards that allowed a maximum of 7 inches on risers and a minimum of 11 inches for tread depths—sizing promoted by some saftety experts following a 1985 study of accidents on stairs in the workplace. Despite the fact that the steeper stairs are acceptable to many codes, some experts still believe they are prone to cause more accidents. Some builder organizations argue that these claims are yet to be proven and that 7-11 stairs take up more space, increasing the cost of building.

When ordering stairs that turn, such as spiral stairs, pay special attention to where measurements must be taken for code acceptance. Many codes demand a 9–10 inch tread depth (minimum) at a point 12 to 14 inches from the narrow side. You'll also find restrictions on head-height clearance and railing construction and placement.

The key is to be sure than any stair you buy will not only meet codes but be an attractive, safe, easy-to-use addition to your home.

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