making stair rails child safe

[Exhausted]

I need to make my stairs child safe, currently the stair rail consists of a bottom, middle and hand rail (see link below for image). My problem is the way the rails join when the reach the top of the stairs. They join on the ceiling above (and not on a post) see image below

was considering adding an extra rail between the hand and middle rail, and also an addition rail between the bottom and middle rail. This would make them child safe. My concern is how to attach the rails. The bottom of the stirs is easy I would simple joint (or screw) the rails into the post. But how do I make a STRONG join at the top. Once the additional rails are in there would be a 1-2 inches of space (not much room).

Any tips or alternative suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

[John Rumm]

add a top rail in the plane of the ceiling. That can then support the extra rails (they can be morticed or half lapped into it), and it can be fixed to the exiting rails and the ceiling for support.

[OG]

I saw someone on one of those design programs on the telly that had something similar and they added one or two plastic cased steel cables in the gaps.

Big eye rings in the woodwork at each end and a tensioner on the cable to remove any slack. I suspect the ring screw would have to go into the wood at an angle so the tension in the cable goes straight into the screw.

You'd need to check the minimum spacing allowed - As I understand it, its got to be so small that there's no risk of a child's body getting through; sadly, toddlers have throttled themselves on bunks and similar by sliding their body through the gap and getting caught by the neck. I know that our recently bought bunk bed had instructions to make sure its either less than

7.5cm or more than 30cm from the wall.

It's hard to judge how long the cables would be from the picture, but you may need to pass the cables through some kind of spacer half way up so that they can't be pulled more than 7.5cm apart at any point.

Hope this makes sense

[nightjar]

IIRC, the British Standard test is that it will not allow to pass a sphere

100mm in diameter

Colin Bignell

[dennis]

Put plywood sheets over the bottom half. You can remove them when they have grown up a bit.

[meow2222]

Parallel rails as you say, you could put horizontals in at ceiling height between the existing diagonal rails, fixing to everything in sight, then run your new diagonals from those.

Several other possibles too. Beware btw if running long strips of unrestrained wood, store it in the house a while first, else its liable to warp as it dries. Or add cross pieces to restrain it, or accept the chance of warp etc...

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, and a minimum distance between anything the child can climb on and the handrail, which effectively means you can only use vertical balustrades with no horizontals or diagonals part way up them.

The one in the picture looks similar to my parents' one (except theirs goes all the way up the stairs and then along the landing). My brother and I probably spent 10 years using as an indoor climbing frame, without ever falling off as far as I recall.