Straight Run Stairway - Home Design

A Straight run stairway would include any stairs that you could walk up or down without changing direction. The picture below provides you with an excellent example of a Straight stairway. The most common stairs built around the world for centuries, have been Straight.

My Straight Stairway Building Record

I don't know if I should have called the Guinness Book of World Records, to tell them about my Straight stairway building record, but I will share it with you.

I don't know how long ago it actually was, 15 or 20 years ago, when I was working on a job that had the exact set of stairs, on every single home that I was working on. We were probably building about 60 homes and each one of them had the same staircase, with the exception of a few different handrails.

I had already precut every stair stringer and had all of my treads in risers cut to the correct width, but not the exact length, because some of the widths of the stairways varied. It wasn't uncommon to have a Straight run stairway that was a half-inch wider at one home and 1 inch smaller at the next.

I could install six Straight run stairways in eight hours. This included a 15 minute break for snacks, in the morning and a 30 minute break for lunch, in the afternoon. I timed myself and the best time I had for installing one of these staircases was 40 minutes.

I thought this was quite an amazing feat and still remember it like it was yesterday. Since I was the only stair builder, most of the time, I would race myself. I don't consider myself a competitive person, but often compete with myself as a way of improving my skills.


Stairs / Stair Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z