Outdoor steps and handrails

[Bert Coules]

There was a very helpful thread on garden steps some months back: thanks to everyone who chipped in.

One thing which didn't crop up then was this: I've looked at the online regs but can't find this specific information.

I'm about to install sets of steps from my two patio doors and back door down to the existing ground level; the drop is almost exactly 600mm. Is it necessary to have handrails and vertical bannisters on both sides of each set of steps, or is it sufficient to put them on one side only?

Thanks.

[Bert Coules]

As so often happens (apologies) having posted the question I almost immediately found the answer:

K1 1.34 (c): If the stairs are 1000mm or wider: provide a handrail on both sides.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Well, are any of the people who use it suffering from sight problems? If so then please paint whit or yellow on the edges and on the side with no rail, and a light contrasting colour on the rail. I've been to so many peoples houses when I still had partial sight and tripped due to the lack of the 3D view of how the stairs run and the edges if everything is the same colour. Brian

[Bert Coules]

That's planned, Brian. The main user will be me, and though my sight's OK I have difficulties with balance: it's just as important for me clearly to see the layout as it would be for the partially-sighted.

[Jeff Layman]

What will you be using for the handrails? Wood, metal, plastic, or a combination?

[Bert Coules]

Probably wood, which will make any colour choices easy to implement of course.

[Terry Casey]

You also need to take into account who will be using them.

For example, I walk with a stck in my right hand so, if I'm forced to use stairs, it is important to have a handrail on the left in BOTH directions, irrespective of the width of the stairs.

[The Marquis Saint Evremonde]

Terry Casey [e-mail] posted

Of course the OP must also accommodate those who have no limbs and are blind and deaf. So, rather than a stair, he must install a lift with a fitted gurney, permanently staffed by a medically qualified attendant.

[tabbypurr]

Nah, you can use a jcb bucket hinged onto the door cill.

NT

[Bert Coules]

What if I have a visitor who suffers from Entamaphobia - the fear of doors? Obviously I have to take great care to ensure that she or he won't be distressed. I'd wall the doorway up, but the odds are I'd then be visited by a touvlophobe, someone deathly afraid of bricks. Where does it end?

[John Kenyon]

It never started - you only have to make "reasonable provision".

For example if your block of 10 flats doesn't have step free access and it would cost £60k to put in a ramp (£6k per flat), you don't have to do it.

However a £60k ramp on a block of flats serving 50 flats starts to become more reasonable, and for a block of 100 flats, it becomes unreasonable not to make the provision (£600 per flat).

[Bert Coules]

Ah, but who decides what is and what isn't reasonable? And reasonable for whom?

[John Kenyon]

In both cases, "The man on the Clapham Omnibus"

[Robin]

I didn't see any reference to him in the Doug Paulley case (wheelchair user wanting to use bus) where even the Supreme Court justices couldn't agree on just what was and wasn't reasonable.