Galvanised and Powdercoated Steel Staircase - Metal Railings

A steel staircase hot dip galvanised and then powdercoated to any RAL colour, with a welded bar infill balustrade colour matched to the stair. Garden and terrace access, balcony stairs, house extensions, basement and annexe access, anywhere the stair is on show and a bare galvanised flight would look wrong.

Everything is made to order, and the dropdowns above only describe a straight flight. The sizes above are bands, not fixed sizes. If your rise is 1850mm you pick the 2000mm band and we make it at 1850mm. The band sets the price, not the size.

Want toughened glass instead of railings? The same stair is on the glass balustrade version of this page.

UKCA marking is a legal requirement for structural steelwork placed on the market in the UK, and a staircase is structural steelwork. Every stair leaves here UKCA marked and certified to BS EN 1090-2.

What the price covers, and what moves it

Rise and landing

Rise is the floor to floor height. Pick the band at or above yours. The top landing is the platform at the head of the flight; choose "no landing" if the stair lands straight onto an existing floor, deck or terrace. Landings here are up to 1500mm, and anything larger or turning a corner is quoted separately.

Support posts

A landing has to be carried, and the stair does not carry it. Where there is a landing, support posts are almost always required. If you picked no landing, choose "no posts required".

• None. No landing, or a landing fully supported by the structure it lands on
• 1 post. Up to 1m of landing, fixed to a wall on one side
• 2 posts. Over 1m of landing, fixed to a wall on one side
• 4 posts. A landing with no wall fixing at all

A landing that turns a corner, or one larger than the sizes on this page, is quoted separately. Not sure how many? Send a photo of where the stair lands before you order.

Balustrade

Vertical bar infill, welded up and powdercoated to the same colour as the stair, one side or both. Both sides is the usual requirement where the flight is open on both edges or serves the public. Key clamp and horizontal bar layouts are available on request.

Railings rather than glass is the right answer where the stair faces a wall, takes knocks, serves a busy or commercial route, or where nobody wants to be cleaning glass. It is also the cheaper of the two.

Timber handrails are an optional extra, and you will see them on several of the photos above. A timber top rail takes the hard edge off a steel flight and is the usual choice where the stair runs through a living space. Ask for a price when you enquire.

Treads

Two options at the same price. Tell us which you want when you order.

• Chequer plate. Solid steel tread, powdercoated with the rest of the stair. Hard wearing, gives grip, nothing falls through
• Pan treads with composite decking infill. A steel tray on each tread filled with decking board, so the stair matches a composite deck or balcony above it. This is what we fit under most walk-out balconies, and it is the detail that makes the stair look like part of the balcony rather than bolted on afterwards

Open mesh is available on request, and so are painted safety nosings.

Some of the photographs show stairs where the treads have been left galvanised while the rest of the flight is powdercoated. That is optional, and worth thinking about on a staircase that gets heavy use. Powder coating on a tread wears over time where feet land, and bare galvanising does not. Tell us when you order if you want the treads left bare.

Finish

Hot dip galvanised first, then polyester powdercoated. The zinc is underneath the colour, so a chip on site does not start rusting, which is the whole reason we do it in that order rather than painting bare steel. Any RAL colour. Anthracite grey RAL 7016 is far and away the most requested, usually to match window frames.

If nobody is going to look at it at all, the plain galvanised access staircase does the same job for less.

The questions that come in before an order are collected in our steel staircase FAQs: what actually drives the cost, the one measurement we need from you, and why every stair we make is supplied in kit form.

How many support posts does the landing need?

A landing has to be carried by something. The stair itself does not carry it, so where there is a landing, support posts are almost always required.

• Landing fixed to a wall on one side, up to 1m of landing: at least one post
• Landing fixed to a wall on one side, over 1m of landing: two posts
• Landing with no wall fixing at all: four posts

"No posts required" only applies where the landing is fully supported by the structure it lands on, and that is the exception rather than the normal case. If the stair lands straight onto an existing floor, deck or terrace there is no landing to carry, and nothing to put posts under.

Whether the wall or the structure can actually take the landing is confirmed from the drawings or from a site survey. It is not something to assume, and it is not something a dropdown can tell you. If you are unsure, send a photo of where the stair lands and the floor to floor height before you order and we will tell you what it needs.

Can you make one that is not a straight flight?

A straight flight is the easy case, and it is the minority of what leaves the workshop. We build kite winders, quarter and half turns, half landings, dog leg flights and intermediate platforms as a matter of routine, and the price depends on the geometry rather than on a band.

Stairs that turn a corner, kite winders, half landings, intermediate platforms and flights running between two structures are a large part of what we build, and none of them fit a price band. Treat the options as a guide to roughly what a stair costs, not as the limit of what we make.

We also build the thing the stair lands on. Walk out balconies, large platforms and terraces, raised decks, access gantries and walkways, all in the same galvanised and powdercoated steel, and normally drawn on the same sheet as the stair so the balustrade, the tread detail and the colour carry through. If you need a stair and the structure it serves, ask for both together and we will price them as one job.

If yours is not a plain straight flight, send a photo of the opening and the floor to floor height to sales@diomet.co.uk or ring 0114 243 9009, and we will price the real thing.

Do you survey, install and deliver?

We survey. If you would rather not take the measurements yourself, or the opening is awkward, we will come and measure it. Site surveys are a chargeable visit in their own right.

We install. Our own site teams fit nationwide, not subcontractors. Ask for an installed price when you enquire and we will quote it separately from the steelwork, so you can see both figures.

Or you fit it yourself. The stair is supplied as a bolt together kit. The price on this page is for the kit alone. Delivery is quoted separately once we know the size of the stair and where it is going.

It arrives in pieces, not in one lump. Stringers, treads, landing and balustrade come separately and bolt together where it is going, which matters more often than people expect. A made up flight will not go through a terraced passage, round a tight side return, through a house or down into a basement lightwell. In kit form it will.

Delivery itself is by arrangement. A staircase is long, heavy and goes on a dedicated vehicle, so the figure shown at checkout is an estimate rather than a quote. The real cost depends on the size of the stair, your postcode and the access at the far end, and we tell you what it is before anything is charged. Most people ring or email at this point rather than ordering online, and that is usually the sensible way round.

Is it certified, and what paperwork do I get?

UKCA marking is not a badge or an optional extra. 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 paperwork and certification issued against the goods once they are made and dispatched. A fair number of the cheap stairs sold online carry no marking at all, so it is worth asking the question before you buy on price alone.

If your building control officer wants more than that, we will provide a specification sheet for the stair, and in practice that is usually enough to settle it.

Structural calculations are a separate piece of work. We can provide them, but they are always chargeable on an individual basis and are never included in the price on this page. If you know calculations are going to be asked for, say so when you enquire and we will price them alongside the stair.

Designed to BS 5395 and Approved Document K, balustrades to BS 6180, certified to BS EN 1090-2, made by coded welders under our own documented factory production control. Ten year warranty.

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.

Nothing gets made until you have checked the drawing

Ordering here does not put steel on a saw. Every staircase is drawn up on AutoCAD and sent to you to approve first, and nothing is cut until you have signed it off. The drawing is a formal part of our order process, not a courtesy.

That is your chance to check the rise, the going, the landing, the balustrade and the way it lands, against the actual opening. If anything has moved on site, this is where it gets caught. Changes at drawing stage cost nothing.

See them in use

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

• External staircase replacement in anthracite grey, Meadowhead
• Steel staircases with solid ash treads and metal balustrades, Chorlton
• Bespoke kite winder staircase, London
• Curved basement access staircase, central London
• Outdoor steel staircase, Oxford

All staircase projects

Guides worth reading before you order

• Steel staircase buying guide
• Staircase building regulations, covering rise, going, headroom and handrail heights
• Staircase classification, which explains why a private stair and a general access stair are held to different rules
• Everything else is on the guides and regulations page

Tighter on space? See the spiral staircase.