Houston....we have a problem! For all the planning and preparation that one ham-and-egger DIY jockey can do, I just (literally) bumped into a problem. I knew right from the beginning when I was designing the structure that the stairway to the second floor was gonna be a booger. There are a plethora of details that are all linked and affect each other. I wrestled with the calculations and knew that some of the final stairway design was gonna be a bit less than ideal, but it would be functional and should do what it's supposed to do. I'll try to paint the picture... Let's start with the upstairs floorplan. The red outlined area in the upper right hand side is the stairwell and the subject zone of the design issues. It looks like this from the upstairs, looking down. another perspective at the top of the staircase
- This was the first questionable decision I made when I laid this staircase out. I am putting a door right at the top of the staircase. There will be no landing just outside the door. On the way up the stairs, when you get to the top step, the door will be right in front of you, one more step up. When you're going down the stairs, as you pass thru the door, you will be stepping down to the first step downhill. I knew this when I laid it out and knew it was a less than desireable design. Why did I do it? Well, like I said...a host of facets that all intertwine and link together. In the end, in order to get the biggest bang for the buck in upstairs square footage usage, I had to put the door there. I was going to move the door further in and put it at the end of the hallway leaving a nice landing in front of the window, but that would cut off the cross-ventilation that the window will provide. In the end, if the building inspector doesn't like my current plan, this is likely what I will have to do...but I don't wanna. In this area, I am still open to some other outta the box ideas. Moving on... The amount of rise and run of the stairs left me no options for the staircase. In order to maintain proper stair height and tread, I had to run the stairs down to a landing, then turn it away. I got the first set of stairs installed, along with the landing. I should'a moved the service door back by another couple of feet...oh well. This little flaw is insignificant and doesn't bother me. It will work just fine. At least I installed the service door with the proper direction of swing. - I was so happy with the way the first set of stairs turned out. Jeesh, what a crazy math equation. Compound stair layout sucks. Anyway, it looked great, so I took my first short walk. I'm just shy of 6'-3" and that beam is comin' really close to my head. On the way up, I miss it without ducking...barely. When I'm comin' down, tho, it's a problem (not because I'm walking backward, JHAP). This is the problem. I never considered it. I thought that the 9 foot tall walls downstairs, coupled with the 6" high concrete curb walls (effectively making the downstairs walls 9'-6" tall) would provide all the clearance I would need for the staircase. Wrongo! I can't change the riser and tread dimensions enough to make a difference and still maintain code for a proper stair tread. If I drop the landing by one stair, the upper stair run will push out too far onto the landing and leave a small area to turn. It would make the landing too small for code. I don't know that there is anything (short of an elevator) that would solve this one. I'm gonna call my inspector this coming week to see what he thinks about this situation. If he says "no go", I really have a conundrum. If he says he doesn't really care, I believe that a helmet might be in my future. At 5'-2", Dski couldn't care less.
