How many stairs in your house?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I used to know how many treads there were up to the geography classroom on the 4th floor at my school.

[bblaukopf]

99% sure it's 13. Built in 1980 - ceilings are on the low side.

[Brian Gaff]

Yes, the worst places are listed buildings where it often seems that stairs are short long with landings in odd places etc. One gets the feeling the stairs kind of just happened as an afterthought.

I do not actually count them any more as you say. Also of course if you are a white long cane user you are taught how to detect and use stairs and escalators. Brian

[Another John]

(without reading the 43 responses, so far, to this thread...) I would suggest that your wife has never been drunk enough to have to ascend, or descend, the stairs in total darkness, and know when she's at the top/bottom in order to avoid breaking an ankle.

Or (as in my case of course, because I never drink (that much) (much)), she's never gone to work so early on a winter morning that she goes downstairs in total darkness in order to avoid waking her dear family by putting the light on.

John

[Johny B Good]

When we were looking at properties nearly 3 1/2 decades ago, quite a few had such split level flooring. This alone was enough to relegate them to the status of (only if we can't find an affordable property without split levels).

We were looking for a 5 or 6 bed semi so we could move the XYL's eldery parents in with us, along with a growing family (4 kids with another on the way), hence the rather sizable 6 bed victorian semi (built 1898) we now rattle around in (no split floor levels, only a half step up from the 1st half landing into the upstairs loo and ditto the 2nd half landing and side attic).

For the record, it turns out that there are 12 steps[1] from the ground floor to the 1st half landing 180 degree turn with another 5 steps[2] onto the first floor landing with another 9 steps to the 2nd half landing followed by a further 7 steps to the second floor landing. I can't remember how many stone steps there are into the basement, at a guess 9 or 10 (they're steeper than the main staircase and only cover a drop of about 8 feet).

[1] For some reason, I had a "13 tread guess" in my mind for this flight of stairs. As it happened, I counted them (in each direction! :-) when I went downstairs to brew myself a cuppa. I only went a little out of my way to count the treads on the topmost flights (besides which, the extra exercise was no bad thing). [2] I _had_ correctly memorised this flight since it's the one that takes the most traffic (the most worn part of the stair carpetting) due to visits between my office in the day and our bedroom at night and the 'upstairs loo'.

[News]

In message , Graham. writes

It is a good many years since I read that book.

[Davey]

I think there's a recent book by Christopher Fowler (?) called '13 Steps Down' or something similar.

[Richard Tobin]

Fair enough. You'd want to know if someone had stolen some of them.

-- Richard

[Richard Tobin]

I thought I knew - 17+19. But it turns out to be 18+20.

-- Richard

[Mr Pounder]

All of my homes had 13 steps on the stairs. I just happen to know this - no idea why. My present home is a bungalow. I have not counted the steps on the pull down ladder to the loft.

[jgh]

Every house I've lived in it has been 13, including my mother's house with 14' ceilings on the ground floor.

[RJH]

Indeed - same as mine, and partner's house - both late 19C terraces. And hers is on 3 'proper' floors. Wonder if that's the inspiration behind 39 steps?!

[djc]

I have to say, until now it is not something I could claim to know even though I did measure up the stairs but a few months ago to price a new carpet. But all the replies have prompted me to check. So I can now report that there are 4 flights of 9 steps between each half landing. There is also another pair (of9?) up to the top flat but that is not a common stair.

[bert]

In message , News writes

She's right.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Er, no! I counted 13 actual steps, but excluding the landing. 14 vertical bits of wood.

[Chris French]

In message , [e-mail] writes

Which implies a riser of over a foot each which is rather high for a step.

Our ceiling in most of the house are 10' or so and the stairs are 16 steps

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Gaff formulated on Wednesday :

I go up most steps two at a time, but strangely have never been able to do that on the way down.

[damduck-egg]

And then take steps to recover them?

G.Harman

[John Rumm]

I am surprised how many people don't know! If I had been asked to make a guess for a property, I would suggest 13 risers is pretty standard for a modern ish ceiling height (7'6 to 8'), and 16 being more common for Victorian places with 10' ish ceilings.

Having said that I have been caught out before (and it cost me £50) by taking the word of an architect, when I made these:

[Mike Barnes]

As a supplementary question I wonder how many people know, without going to check, how high their ceilings are downstairs.

I knew the number of stairs (14) but not the ceiling height (mostly

8'6"). Are ceilings generally a multiple of 6" high?