Iron spiral staircase maintenance

[James Harris]

I have a spiral staircase which is made of iron and looks a little like the one in the following picture.

A bit of a long shot, I guess, but do any of you guys know of a UK firm that specialises in maintenance on such a staircase? The specific location is East London.

Maintenance is needed to stop the top of some side grilles coming away from the handrail. This might need someone to change the fixings at the top or possibly to tighten bolts to make adjustments to the way the staircase sits.

The iron can be expected to be farily brittle and the parts may be irreplaceable so I need someone who I can trust to do the job without breaking anything.

James

[whisky-dave]

A friend had a similar problem with a balcony staircase, they found that on enquiring it was far cheaper to get someone to make a new staircase and fit that. (also east London) It wasnt; a 'spiral' one though.

I think that was the problem it was expensive to get someone skilled in old metal work and securing it for H&S.

So I can;t think of anyone, but one thing I will say it that yuo probbaley don;t have a spiral staircase, it's a helical one, blame the QI programme for that one :-)

a Spiral starcase would get smaler or larger fromm top to bottom.

[michael adams]

Architecturally speaking a spiral staircase revolves around a central axis pole with only an outside handrail and the steps are very much wider on the outside than in the middle where they reduce to nothing.

Whereas a helical staircase has a handrail on both sides and depending on the curvature of the structure, the steps can be almost the same width on the outside as in the middle.

michael adams

...

[pcb1962]

Can't answer your question but just to say that the parts are far from irreplaceable, any foundry can easily cast replacements if necessary using existing parts as a pattern. This one in E London for example:

In fact it is probably worth talking to them anyway, some of their customers are likely to have the skills you're looking for

[Nightjar]

The Château de Chambord has a famous double helical staircase.

[Steve Walker]

There's a triple at Dover - the Grand Shaft, built to rush troops to the docks if Napoleon tried to invade

[newshound]

Magnificent! I particularly like the use of the "core" as a light pipe.