Two-story houses or cottages should be equipped with reliable stairs. As a material for the manufacture of these structures, wood is most often chosen. Wooden stairs to the second floor can be purchased ready-made or made independently. By choosing the second option, you will reduce your material costs and do exactly what you really need
Types of structures
To build a staircase, you must be able to use the tool, know the rules for constructing sketches and drawings. This will allow:
- design all the constituent structural elements;
- consider potential weaknesses and correct deficiencies at the project stage;
- calculate the size of the steps so that it is convenient to climb and descend.
For the manufacture of stairs it is best to use wood. This building material is environmentally friendly, practical, malleable in work, which is especially important for beginners. Using a special tool, you can make a staircase of such a shape that would ideally fit your interior:
- straight or rounded;
- simple or decorative;
- heavy or light.
The following popular types of wooden staircase designs are distinguished:
Choosing a ladder scheme
For a private house or village cottage, both a marching and a spiral staircase are suitable. However, one should not forget that spiral structures require very precise installation, as well as special elements (for example, a rounded railing). To make them, you need to master the technology of professional installation.
This is especially true for more complex staircases, which at the initial stage can be used only as a model for inspiration, not imitation. Do not rely on ready-made schemes, since they do not take into account all the features of your situation.
As for the flight of stairs, it is much easier to make and install with their own hands. They come in various configurations:
- direct single-march;
- turning swivel: right- or left-handed, depending on the layout of the house;
- U-shaped two-march;
- L-shaped two-march;
- screw.
When placing a staircase on the 2nd floor with more than 10 steps, it is recommended to divide it with a platform with a turn, after which it can go up along the wall at an angle of 90 or 180 degrees.
The choice of a particular model depends on your taste and features of the layout of the house.
Preparation of materials
Before you make a wooden staircase to the second floor yourself, you need to decide on the choice of building material. The most popular tree species are pine and larch. In terms of performance, larch products are better, as they are less prone to decay.
Larch is not afraid of moisture, moreover, when the liquid is absorbed, the structure becomes stronger. This is a significant advantage, since the house will always have a little humidity. For the construction of stairs, oak, cedar, beech and other wood species are also suitable, but at a cost this is not the cheapest pleasure.
The service life of a tree largely depends on how the lumber is dried. The maximum degree of wood moisture should be no more than 12%.
Well-dried boards are more expensive, but this is more than offset by the durability of the stairs.
If the lumber is wet enough, you will have to dry the wood yourself. For this, it is placed in a well-ventilated room with a constant temperature regime for a period of at least 3 months.
Calculation of the main parameters of the stairs
There are certain recommended sizes. The exact parameters of the staircase to the second floor are calculated when constructing the scheme.
Width
The standard width of the stairs is from 90 to 150 cm. But when calculating this indicator, the following points should be taken into account:
- how convenient it will be for two people to go towards each other at the same time;
- whether the width you have chosen allows you to carry large items (furniture, appliances) along the stairs.
Length
To calculate this indicator, you need to take the sizes of the steps and calculate their number. Experience has shown that by making a drawing yourself on paper, mistakes are made. As a result of this, the staircase in reality becomes longer than in the figure. You can get out of this situation as follows: include in the staircase several railing steps.
Height
Determining the overall height, inexperienced masters often make mistakes. They only take into account the distance from the subfloor to the ceiling of the upper floor room. This is not entirely correct. When drawing up the drawing, you need to take into account the finishing mark of the 1st floor and the thickness of the floor on the upper floor together with the finish.
Overlap parameters
It is important to leave enough space between the steps and the ceiling of the upper floor. As a rule, it is equal to the growth of the tallest person and is approximately 190 - 200 cm.
Stairs slope
To build a wooden staircase to the second floor with your own hands, it is recommended to observe a slope of the staircase structure of 40-45 degrees. If this indicator is exceeded, then it will be difficult for people of advanced age, small children to climb it.
When choosing a flat design, the consumption of building materials increases and the useful area of the room is reduced. Therefore, when calculating this indicator, one should proceed from an accessible place.
Steps
Their constituent elements are tread and risers. When determining the size of the tread, it is necessary to focus on the size of the foot. Therefore, the optimal width of the steps is considered to be 30 cm.
The size of the riser, depending on the slope of the stairs, is from 15 to 20 cm.
To calculate the number of steps, the height of the entire structure should be divided by the height of one step. The last value is displayed by summing the thickness of the board and the height of the riser.
When building the drawings, it is important to consider the following:
- All steps should be the same in size.
- If the design has more than 18 steps, it is advisable to introduce 2 marches into the project and provide for a site. It is called a viewing, turning or intermediate. Its location may be the center of the span or a site near the beginning of the stairs.
Online calculator for calculating
For your convenience, you can make all the calculations using the convenient online staircase calculator. As a result, you will get ready-made drawings and a bill of materials.
Installation of a marching wooden staircase
Installation of a wooden interfloor staircase begins with the manufacture of kosoures (or bowstrings), treads and risers.
Treads are cut out of the board according to a previously prepared template. Their standard thickness varies from 30 to 40 cm. If done more, it will be an unjustified consumption of materials and weighting of the structure. Risers perform a decorative function in the structure. Therefore, they can be saved using a 10-15 mm board.
Kosoures are made from a solid board, on which there are no defects. Both braids must be identical so that the staircase does not turn out asymmetrical and skewed.
Frame assembly
Installation of kosour begins with making cuts on the floor beam located at the top of the flight of stairs. Sometimes cuts are replaced by metal stops, which should be fixed to the vertical of the ceiling with anchors.No matter which method you choose, the braids must be firmly fixed to the overlap.
On the lower floor, along the line of the very first step, a support bar is installed in the floor. Anchors are used as fasteners.
Installation of components
Set the steps is not difficult. Cutouts of the kosour are coated with glue and put risers to them, which then need to be leveled and fixed with screws.
Treads are laid on top and fix them to the risers, the braces. Under them, it is recommended to put polymer gaskets in the form of tapes. This will prevent squeaking due to the friction of wooden parts against each other.
The function of the fence is performed by the balusters, which are important for mounting, it is important to maintain evenness. To this end, set the upper and lower columns and connect them together with a stretched thread. It serves as a guide when installing the remaining elements. Balusters can be attached with screws or self-tapping screws that mask with grout or plugs.
The handrail is installed and fixed on the balusters. It can be wooden, iron or other material.
Finishing
After installation, all surfaces must be sanded, including hard-to-reach spots, ends, joints. Then the structure is treated with protective equipment, varnished or painted.
Features of manufacturing a spiral staircase
The manufacture and installation of wooden spiral staircases to the second floor is much more complicated than marching. But, on the other hand, they save usable space and are placed where there would not be enough space for the marching construction.
The best option is to install a spiral structure with a central support. In this case, the steps in the form of a triangle or a trapezoid are attached directly to it. To make the construction more reliable, the support column with a specially attached heel is placed vertically and concrete at the base.
In steps from a narrower edge, holes are made with which they are strung on a support pipe. Between the steps are installed inserts in the form of a cylinder, which determine the height of the structural elements. The last step on the upper tier is installed flush with the opening in the ceiling on the second floor and acts as an additional supporting element.
To make it easier to go down and up, the vertical interval between the rows of steps should be at least two meters. And the width of the stairwell is clean - at least 90 cm.
Often resort to more compact models of spiral staircases. This is permissible only when it is not planned to be used often. This applies, for example, country stairs or for climbing to the attic.
The most convenient tread depth is considered to be from 15 cm at the central pillar and from 35 cm from the outer edge. The riser height is on average about 20 cm. However, sometimes you can completely abandon them. This will make the structure more convenient, reduce its weight, as well as reduce the cost of building materials.