Internal Feature Staircase - Metal Balustrade

A bespoke internal staircase built from steel, with a fabricated metal balustrade rather than glass. Made in Sheffield, powder coated, and UKCA certified to BS EN 1090-2.

This is the stair for an interior where the structure is meant to be part of the look. Flat bar stringers with the tread fixings on show, open risers, and a balustrade made up from bar rather than bought in as a system. Treads in Durbar chequer plate, in solid ash or oak, or closed and ready for carpet.

The figure on this page covers a straight flight up to a metre wide, meeting an existing landing or floor level.

What you get

• Flat bar steel stringers, powder coated in any RAL colour
• Treads in your choice of three materials, selectable above
• Metal balustrade with vertical bar infills, 920mm above the pitch line on the flight and 900mm on landings
• Steel handrail in flat or round section, whichever you prefer. Solid oak or ash handrails are an optional extra at additional cost
• Straight flight as listed, up to 1 metre wide, connecting to an existing landing or floor level. Landings, turns and kite winders are quoted separately
• UKCA certified to BS EN 1090-2, execution class EXC2, designed to comply with Approved Document K
• AutoCAD drawings made to your dimensions and approved by you before anything is manufactured
• 10 year product warranty

Sections and thicknesses are set on the drawing for your own span and loadings rather than taken from a standard list, so they are not quoted here. You will see them on the drawing before you approve anything.

Three ways to do the treads

The tread is the single biggest thing on this page, both for how the stair looks and for what it costs. All three are carried the same way, on welded cleats bolted through the stringer.

• Durbar chequer plate: hot rolled steel with the raised teardrop pattern, laser cut and folded. The industrial option, and the one with the best grip. It is the plate used on gantries and vehicle steps, and the pattern is rolled into the steel rather than applied to it, so it cannot wear off
• Closed treads for carpet: a steel pan with a solid riser behind it, built to take carpet laid by your own fitter. It gives you a steel feature stair in a hallway where the floor covering has already been chosen
• Solid ash or oak: hardwood boards in a pressed steel tread tray. Ash is pale and straight grained, so a long flight reads as one continuous material rather than a stack of separate boards. Oak is warmer and more figured, and suits a darker interior better. The two are the same price, so it is a look decision rather than a cost one. Tell us which when you order

Timber treads go in bare and are oiled after installation, once the other trades have cleared site. Oiling before that only means doing it twice. Our natural wood page explains how solid timber behaves once it is in.

Open risers, without a row of bars across them

This is an open riser staircase, and it is the detail worth understanding before you order one.

Approved Document K requires that no opening in a staircase allows a 100mm sphere to pass through. On a stair of normal rise the gap between one tread and the next is far wider than that, so something has to close it. The usual answer is a row of slim bars across every riser, which works and which a lot of people then wish they had not had.

On this stair the tread closes the gap itself. The steel is folded down at the nosing and up at the back edge, and the two returns on consecutive treads meet in the middle of the riser. Nothing is added between the treads, because the thing closing the gap is the same piece of steel that is already carrying your foot.

It works the same way whether the tread is chequer plate or a tray under timber. What it depends on is the rise, so the sum is done on the drawing before anything is cut. Send us the floor to floor height and we will tell you where it lands.

Two of these are on the site to look at: an industrial staircase near Wakefield in chequer plate, and an ash tread staircase in Manchester where the same principle is used under timber.

The balustrade

The balustrade is fabricated here from bar rather than assembled from a catalogue system. That is the main difference between this stair and our glass ones, and it is why it is priced the way it is.

The standard run is vertical bar infills between a top and bottom rail, carried on posts off the stringer. The infill centres are calculated for each run so the bays divide equally and still come in under the 100mm sphere limit, rather than being set at a nominal spacing and left short at one end.

Welded mesh is the other standard infill: framed panels with 2 inch mesh set into them, at the same price as bar. It reads as a piece of equipment rather than a piece of furniture, it costs less than glass over the same run, and it never shows a fingerprint.

One point worth raising on mesh. A 2 inch mesh is potentially climbable, and opinions differ on how much that matters. Approved Document K no longer carries the guidance it once did about climbable guarding in dwellings, and building control officers take different views in practice. If you have very young children, or you think yours may raise it, ask them before you order rather than after. Bar infills and glass avoid the question altogether.

Height is 920mm above the pitch line on the flight, and 900mm on landings and gallery edges, which is what Approved Document K asks for inside a dwelling. The figure only rises to 1100mm where the same guarding carries on out to an external balcony or a roof edge. Our handrail building regulations guide sets out where those numbers come from, and the heights change again in a commercial or public building, so tell us what the building is used for.

Bespoke infill patterns

Some of the photographs on this page show balustrades that are not a plain vertical run: angled bars at varying pitches, and rectangular loop balusters. Those are drawn for the job rather than taken off a shelf, and they are priced on enquiry rather than selectable above.

They are not a small uplift. A patterned run has several times the number of cuts, welds and jig set ups of a plain one, and every one is laid out individually so the pattern resolves properly at both ends rather than running out halfway. Send us a sketch or a photograph of what you have in mind and we will price it against the flight.

Handrails

A steel handrail is included, in flat or round section, whichever suits the stair better. Flat reads a little more industrial and sits well with chequer plate. Round is easier in the hand over a long flight. There is no difference in price, so take your pick.

Solid oak or ash is an optional extra at additional cost. It is machined from solid and mitred at the changes of direction so the timber runs continuously round a turn rather than stopping and starting, which is where the extra work goes. Several of the staircases photographed on this page have timber handrails on them, so if that is the look you are after, say so when you enquire and we will price it against your flight.

Where the stair runs against a wall, a matching wall mounted rail keeps a hand on the same material the whole way up. Tell us which side the wall is on when you enquire and we will include it.

Why this costs more than a glass balustrade

It usually surprises people, because glass reads as the premium material. In fabrication terms it is the other way round.

A frameless glass balustrade is a set of clamps and a panel. A bar balustrade is posts, rails and infills, every one cut, jigged, welded, dressed and set out to a calculated spacing. It is a day's work rather than an afternoon's, and the price reflects where the hours actually go.

If frameless glass is what you want, our spine staircase with ClearFix glass and the InvisiFix version start lower than this page does.

Our steel staircase FAQs go further into what drives the cost of a made to measure flight, along with open risers, kit form delivery and the one measurement we need before we can quote.

Can you make one that is not a straight flight?

A straight flight is the only shape that can sensibly be priced from a dropdown. It is nowhere near the limit of what we build. The same staircase is regularly made with:

• Quarter and half landings built into the flight, finished in the same tread material
• L-shaped and U-shaped runs, or a dog-leg back on itself
• Kite winder treads, which turn the stair through 90 degrees without a landing and are often the answer where a landing will not fit
• Wider flights, and floor to floor heights outside the two bands listed above

Anything other than a straight run is drawn and quoted on its own, because no two are the same. Our staircase buying guide compares the shapes and is honest about which suits which space, and there is a flight that is almost entirely winder in our London basement staircase.

Landings and gallery edges

The balustrade on this page runs with the flight. Where the guarding carries on past the top tread along a landing, a gallery edge or a mezzanine, our internal metal balustrade is made from the same sections in the same finish, so the two read as one piece of work.

Tell us the lengths when you enquire and we will price the stair and the landing guarding together. Ordering them separately, or from two different suppliers, is how you end up looking at the step between them for the next twenty years.

Options worth knowing about

• Solid oak or ash handrails in place of steel
• Bespoke balustrade infill patterns
• Landings or kite winder treads where the layout will not take a straight run
• Anti-slip nosings to the tread edges
• LED lighting integrated into the stringer or the handrail
• Two tone finishes, with the balustrade in a different colour to the stair

Ask us for pricing on any of these. The figure on this page is a guide for a standard flight, and every stair is quoted on its own dimensions.

Trial built before it is finished

Feature staircases are trial assembled in our Sheffield workshop before they go for coating. On a stair with a fabricated balustrade that matters, because the balustrade, the stringer and the treads all have to line through, and finding a fouling post in our own workshop costs minutes rather than a lost day on your landing. There is more on our trial building page.

Do you deliver and install?

The price on this page is for the staircase alone. Delivery is quoted separately once we know the size and where it is going. We install nationwide with our own team, and we will quote for that alongside.

It arrives in sections rather than in one piece, so it will go through a hallway or round a landing opening that a made up flight could never be carried through. A staircase is structural, so if you are fitting it yourself we would recommend a competent tradesperson does it.

Is it certified, and what paperwork do I get?

UKCA marking is a legal requirement for structural steelwork placed on the market in the UK, and a staircase is structural steelwork. It is not a badge or an optional extra, and a stair supplied without it should not be going onto your building.

Dio-Met is certified to BS EN 1090-2 with documented factory production control, coded welders and calibrated equipment. Every stair leaves here UKCA marked, with the certification issued against the goods. More on what that covers is on our UKCA certification page.

Structural calculations are a separate piece of work. We can provide them, but they are chargeable individually and are never included in the price on this page. If you know calculations will be asked for, say so when you enquire.

The guidance on this page reflects what we typically supply and is offered in good faith. It is not a structural specification and it is not a substitute for project specific design. Rise, going, headroom, guarding, fixings and the structure you are fixing to all vary, and final compliance for your project rests with you, your designer or your building control body.

Fixings

Every fixing needed to bolt the staircase together is supplied with it.

Wall and floor fixings are not supplied on a supply only order. The right anchor depends on what your building is made of and what condition it is in, and that is not a call we can make from here. Fixing points come drilled ready and your installer selects anchors to suit the substrate. Where we install, we take that decision on site and provide them.

Finish

Powder coated in the colour of your choice, black being the most common on this stair. What to expect from a coated finish, and how to look after it, is on our material and finish standards page.

See them in use

Every one of these was drawn, made and installed by us. Photographs, dimensions and what the job involved.

• Industrial staircase with Durbar treads and mesh balustrade, Wakefield
• Steel staircases with solid ash treads and metal balustrades, Manchester
• Bespoke kitewinder basement access staircase, London

All internal and feature staircases

Before you order

Our steel staircase buying guide walks through shape, construction, treads, balustrade and what drives the price. The staircase regulations guide covers rise, going, headroom and guarding, and staircase classification explains which set of rules applies to your building.

Send us your floor to floor height and the opening you have to work with and we will tell you what will fit. Call 0114 243 9009 or email sales@diomet.co.uk.