spiral stairs

A short page with my views on spiral stairs

Advantages of spiral stairs

A beautiful Victorian era cast iron spiral in Malacca's Chinatown.

A top view of a spiral, a steel external one. Photo thanks to RoganJosh and Morguefile.

Spiral stairs have a few things going for them.

• They conserve space, in plan they take up the least space of any conventional stairway.
• Using modern methods of construction they can be had in kit form and easily assembled on site.
• They can and do look very attractive.  In certain types of homes, say an industrial building made into apartments they can be seen as trendy.  When I was looking for photos for this article I had no trouble finding shots of spiral stairs, I even dug up about six in my own collection.  As I said, people like the looks of them, they are appealing.

Disadvantages

One of my old textbooks on stair building¹ states: "Winders should not be introduced into a stair if an alternative arrangement is possible".

Considering that a spiral stair consists entirely of winders then that statement is doubly true.  It was true in 1950 and it is still true.

A manufacturer will tell you that spirals are safe, they are approved etc. The reason that spiral stairs can still be approved, is the fact that the average width of the triangular type treads can be equal to a standard stair tread.
So say we have a tread say 100 to 500 wide, then the average in the middle is 300.  Great, for the same rise, the angle of the stair is the same.

I don't buy this, here are my reasons.

• If we walk up the middle or the outer edge, as we have to, we are going counter to our normal instincts.  When we go up or down a normal stair that changes direction at landings then we always walk on the inside of the turns, naturally, it is just the easiest and shortest way.
• If we are forced towards the center, (passing someone else) we are then walking up or down a considerably steeper section of the stair.
• Just where you need it most the handrail, if there is one at all near the center, is the least effective because it is no longer a rail (horizontal) but more like a post (vertical).
• Can you imagine the girl in my Angkor Wat photo confidently walking down the stair on the right with a breakfast tray in her hands?

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