| By Greg Vanden Berge 1/21/2008 What is
the most cost effective way of building stairs ? Why do the tract homes
use on site methods of construction ? When you think of a factory
assembling a product on a assembly line you think why not a home.
Why do they still build homes on lots or residential home sites ?
If homes could be built in a factory cheaper than on site that is
exactly what every home builder would be doing. They just haven't quite
figured it out yet. When dealing with the large amounts of materials
required to build a house and of course the expense of shipping. It is
not cost effective to build a conventional home in a factory and ship it
over long distances.
This is the biggest problem with cost effective stair construction.
Most prefabricated stairs you will notice are spiral stairs. These
stairs are smaller than most stairs that are used for multi level
construction. The stairs in your average two story house are going to
weigh about 3 times the amount of a spiral set of stairs that could be
shipped in a cost effective way. Spiral stairs are not going to be the
main stairway in a home and normally go up to a loft or an attic. Most
spiral stairs don't meet the minimum building requirements for the main
stairway in your home.
When building tract homes the lumber is shipped in bulk directly to
the house site where it will be assembled. The lumber and other building
materials will be shipped once. If it went to a factory and then
assembled it would also have to be sent to the site on which the house
was to be built. This added expense in shipping the materials twice is
the problem for such a large and heavy item such as a set of stairs.
There are other prefabricated types of stairs that are built locally
and the shipping usually is not a major expense. If you are building a
stairway that is not to difficult to build for the average carpenter it
will normally be cost effective to build the stairs on site. This would
require having the carpenter build the stairs as part of the rough
framing and then after drywall have the finish carpenter build the stair
handrail system.
About The Author:
Greg Vanden Berge is working on
the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow
guides and home building books to help professional building contractors
as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more stair
building books and adding useful content to help solve problems
created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.
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