Steel Stairs
Steel stairs are without a doubt the strongest stairs with their greatest asset being that
they take a while to burn or melt in a fire. If there is a fire these
stairs will hold up the best. Steel will out last any other material if
maintained properly over time.
Steel stairs are common in large building built from
steel. These buildings would include your large skyscrapers and multi
level building. Some steel stairs have cement treads attached to them or
steel treads with cement poured in a steel step forming a nice tread to
walk on. The combination of the steel and
concrete make for a very
effective set of stairs in a fire.
Steel stairs also have great benefits for
structural strength in different forms of fabrication. Steel
stairs can be made longer and stronger than wood stairs
therefore the distance between the two floors can be farther
apart.
The stairway you're looking at on your left,
is a new set of stairs, with two steel stringers and concrete
stair tread. Attached to the concrete stair treads, is a metal
hand rail or guard rail. It's hard to tell unless we measure it.
The stairway is a good example of a guard rail without a
gripable handrail (or vice versa), that is between 34 and 38
inches from the stair nosing. This would be a vertical
measurement, or up and down from the tip of the stair nosing, to
the top of the handrail.