Requirements of A Good Stair for A Building

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Introduction

Constructing a good stair with expensive materials and making it fancy would not necessarily fulfil the requirement of good stair. Requirement of good stair should mean ease of use, readily accessible and comfortable for maneuver while using it may be considered. However, there are debate about the good stair. As a technical personal and designer, one should consider best criteria for the requirement of good stair. Here we shall see some of the criteria for requirement of good stair.

Requirements of A Good Stair

One of the components of safe home is to have a good stair if necessary. Therefore, some of requirements of good stair is a following: –

Location

1. It should be so located as to provide easy access to the occupants of the building.
2. It should be so located that its well lighted and ventilated directly from the exterior.
3. It should be so located as to have approaches convenient and spacious.

Width of Stair

It should have enough width to carry the user without much crowd or inconvenience. Width of stair depends upon its location in the building and types of the building itself.

Length of Flight

The number of steps is usually taken between 3 to 12 for comfortable maneuvering in a building. If the number of steps is greater than 12 in a flight, the person using it would get tired easily and elderly people would avoid using it due to the pain to climb it. So a good stair should have a minimum of 3 steps and maximum of 12 steps.

Pitch of Stair

The stair’s pitch should match the French Theory, the labour of moving vertically is about twice that of moving horizontally if the average human stride is taken as 23 inches. If the rise and going are measured in inch units, the best pitch of the stairs is that inclination which by twice the rise and adding the going equals 23. When measured in cm units, a comfortable slope is achieved when twice the rise plus going is equal to 60 approximately. Pitch should, however, be limited to 30⁰ to 45⁰.

Head Room

The clear distance between the tread and soffit of the flight immediately above it should not be less than 2.1 to 2.3m, so that even a tall person can use the stair with some luggage on its head.

Balustrade

Open well stair should always be provided with balustrade, to provide safety to the users. Wide stair should have handrail to both the sides.

Step Dimensions

The rise and going should be of such dimensions as to provide comfort to the users. Their proportion should also be such to provide desirable pitch of the stair. The going should not be less than 25 cm, though 30 cm going is quite comfortable. The rie should be between 10 cm (for hospitals etc) to 15 cm. The width of landing should not be less than the width of stair.

For comfortable ascent and descent, the rise and tread of a step should be well proportioned. The following thumb rules are followed:

1. (2 x Rise in cm) + (Going in cm) = 60
2. (Rise in cm) + (Going in cm) = 40 to 45
3. (Rise in cm) X (Going in cm) = 400 to 450
4. Adopt Rise = 14cm and Going = 30 cm as standard;

For every 20 mm subtracted from going, add 10 mm to the rise. The other combination for rise and going would be 150 mm X 280 mm; 160 mm X 260 mm and 170mm X 240 mm.

For residential buildings, the common size of the steps is 160 mm X 260 mm. For the hospital building, the comfortable size of the steps id 100 mm X 300 mm.

Materials of Construction

The materials used for the construction of stair should be such as to provide:

1. Sufficient strength
2. fire resistance

Conclusion

Stair is the means of vertical transportation between the floors. It should, therefore, be designed as to provide easy, quick and safe mode of communication between the floors. Following are the general requirements which a stair should fulfil.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)