Winder Stair Design
Edco Haglund
I have a tricky project where we have a u shaped winder staircase, but there is a new set of stairs (the bit with carpet) with sprawls off the corner of the main stairs creating almost T junction. The picture attached explain it. I am trying to figure out a way to make this safer, any ideas are welcome.
I cant correctly create any U-shape winder stairs. Generally, my solution I do is quite simple.. I draw a stair in any boundry i defined, and then I click any edge of baseline of stair > auto-opened pop-up menu> select segment type > winder with equal goings.. So, Archicad offers any proposal for me. I select any of them.. Unfortunately, this solution dont work very well. Firstly my control on stair option obviously very limited; Secondly, I have many errors in 3d & sections.. I need help for U-shaped winder stairs..
Thanks for replying, Unfortunately, my problem isnt underside of the stairs, my problem is undefined volids in my stair in 3d. There is a mass but its unseen on there. The blue contour line define all solidity for stair, but in 3d I cant see there (only void btw slab&stair) unlike 2d plan view.
Thanks a lot sir, I have fixed the problem with your mentorship. However, I recognize that I couldnt modify any option with Ctrl+T_ToolSettingsForStairs, If I wanna change anything. My solution works on only redraw stair from scratch. I have an another modifiying problem with Ctrl+T_StairToolSettings. For instance, I try to adjust FloorPlanDisplayLayouts, but it doesnt work.
I fix it as I transfer all my drawings to another new Archicad page with Command_Copy. However, sometimesarchicad still dont react for the changes I did in ToolSettings(Ctrl+T). I dont know why.. I'll carry on & inform you.. Thanks a lot..
But after looking at some real U shaped stairs pictures on google I noticed that in some stairs the winders are not triangles but quadrilaterals that are narrower on one side (something like this), making the step depth a little bigger, which seems to make the stairs more comfortable to climb.
Does anyone with experience in building (real life) stairs has any tips about if using quadrilateral steps instead of triangles would be better? Or any reading material to learn the maths involved in creating this type of stairs in chief?
You can have less than 6" at an edge, but it has to be classified as a "Spiral Stair" or a "Landing". In either case, the angle can't be less than 22.5 degrees for a "Tread" or 45 degrees for a "Landing".
By the way, I am not a professional on the field, I am just drawing some ideas for my future house. After reading the code for my country I found the minimum at the edge is 12cm (4.72 inches). But I don't think they enforce it, since I know a lot of houses that doesn't meet that min requirement. I'd still like to improve my current design anyway.
I found this method -stair-building/how-to-calculate-stairs/part2 for "balancing" the treads, but I couldn't figure out how to apply it on a U shaped stair, specially when mine doesn't have a space between the two sets of stairs (like this -content/gallery/stair-u-shape/100_6603.jpg, where the wall seems to be below the higher set of stairs, and not in the middle). I attached the plan file I am working on, but didn't get too far.
Does anyone has some reading material like that one but for U shaped stairs? Or how is this method for "balancing" treads is called in english (not my main lang btw)?, because I couldn't find much info about it on google.
Bye the way, you remind me about a joke, two guys sitting in a bus side by side, one asked the other "wa.....waaa....what ..t....t..time is it rrrright now" the other guy kept silent. Again the guy repeated questioning, asked several times and the guy is not talking at all. So some one else following the two, answered him "10:30". After one minute the silent guy getting close to the other whispered, saying "mmm.....mm..my ffffffriend I was af...fff...afraid you woulddd tttakkke it I wassss... making fun of youuuu." So obviously both had the same tongue problem, like you and me( English is my 99th language) no worries. Just say what you want, some one will understand and interpret to others, like they do it for me some times.
Anybody who is using their 99th language to teach CA, must be applauded. Yusuf, you are an asset to this forum...you come up with some neat stuff thinking outside of the box. Please keep up the good work. Thank You.
I know around here building departments have strict rules when it comes to winder style staircases. I know it's been said before that building codes don't allow their construction in any manner, and they all require a 10" tread depth along the "line of travel" 12" from the narrow edge of the stair treads, and min 6" at the edge.
A while back there was a lawsuit and everyone lost big time, the township neglected to enforce the code, but they're insured, the designer and the builder got nailed and paid allot of money including punitive damages.
On a side note here, the way Yusef drew the stairs still doesn't meet code anywhere that I know of. Its close, but the narrow part is too narrow. That being said, it is probably MUCH MUCH safer than the 2nd example in the OP. The odd, gradual change in stair shape can only be bad. In my humble opinion, 2 straight runs with a group of winders is much safer because you're not taken by surprise... the change in step profile is obvious and so a person is mentally prepared to deal with it. With the odd gradual change this simply isn't true.
I used 26cm for tread depth, That's the min required in my country, not sure in the US. Looks like im gonna stick with this last simpler design. At least I learnt to handle CA a little better with all the winder stairs I tried to create.
One of the real weaknesses of winder stairs is getting furniture etc. up and down them.. large items are not easily put up and down them. Same with straight stairs with short runs.. You either wind up dead lifing items up the stairwell or taking them apart into small pieces something that isn't easily done.
A temporary fix, at least with my WinXP Pro and monitor, is to hover the cursor on the L edge of the message window, and then drag it way left. It will shrink the index column down to nothing, but at least you get to read the silly message with the too-wide picture, without sideways scrolls.
Frenchy, I'm not sure you are reading this post, but your comment about winder stairs being cramps for large stuff movement up and down, means you are not thinking in 3D. The 37-wide stairs is no narrower at the winder corner, and in fact that corner is slightly bigger than one with a straight 90.
A couple friends and I once moved an upright piano up a 180 flight of narrow winders. The only way we could figure out how to do it was to have me sit on the bottom step, and they got the piano onto my back. Then they balanced the piano as I slid up one step at a time.
That's one of the big benefits of Firefox V.3xxx. In the past, the text would shrink but the images would stay the same.I can't remember what the new way is called, there's some special term for it, but the whole page is enlarged or reduced. It is handy.
I had thought of winders to access my garage attic. Didn't have a lot of room and steps had to turn at the garage corner. Winders would've saved a rise or two... but to do them to code they didn't save anything as opposed to putting a landing in. So I opted for the landing.
A few months after building my first and only set of winders I visited the shop of a custom stair builder with many years experience. I wanted to ask his opinion of winders because I had a lot of misgivings about the safety of the set I built, even though they were according to an architect's prints.
Although the set that Mike built look a lot safer than the cramped set I made, I still don't believe I'd get involved in building another set, just because of the chance of getting named in a lawsuit.
I've seen instances where people who had nothing to do with the actual cause of an accident still had to hire a lawyer to defend them in court. Negligence lawsuits can take many months to resolve, all the time making life miserable for lots of innocent people.
As you can see, the first tread going into the wind is the one that needs to be adjusted to meet the 6 and 10 code thing. The other treads are each an 18 degree wind, but the starter and the ender are a little broader, sweep-wise.
His new name is Gene Pirate Dylan!oops, he pirated Bob Dylan's name too!Andy, you just don't know what it's like to be old and retired. You start learning all sorts of tricks like taking extra pats of butter home with you from the buffet line when you eat out.It's all about survival of the cheapest. The new Darwinian rule.;)
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