The height of the staircase fence and other requirements for

The topic of this article is ladders and fences for them. What should be the height of stair railings according to SNiP? What do fire safety requirements and building regulations say about stairs? Let's try to get answers to these questions.

Both builders of gray concrete high-rises and architects of magnificent palaces observe certain standards related to the safety of occupants. We will talk about them.

The target audience

Who is this article for? Of course, first of all, builders, designers and owners of private houses.

When drafting an apartment building, as a rule, experts are involved, and so owning the necessary legislative base. At the same time, the need to design a building to assign an address to it and to register a residence permit it to adhere to all formal requirements.

Please note: despite some confusion in the current regulatory documents, most of the instructions were written a decade ago and focused primarily on your own safety. Do not treat all applicable standards with irony.

At the same time, the article will contain a number of requirements that are relevant for apartment buildings and administrative buildings - simply in order not to leave anything important beyond our attention.

The basis of all norms, regardless of the type of buildings - the structure and proportions of the human body.

List of requirements

Apartment, public and administrative buildings

So, what should be the height of the fences of stairs, roofs, balconies, loggias and platforms for various purposes?

They are regulated by several regulatory documents.

Federal Law No. 123-F3

The law of June 22, 2008 “Technical Regulations on Fire Safety Requirements” in Article 90 indicates the following requirements:

• In buildings with a roof slope of 12 degrees or less with a height of more than 10 meters, as well as in buildings with a large roof slope with a height of over 7 meters, a fence around the perimeter of the roof is mandatory.

Fencing around the perimeter of the roof.

• In addition, the fence regardless of the height should be provided for the exploited roofs, loggias, external galleries, balconies, external staircases and platforms.

SNiP 31-03-2001

Article 5.15 of the sanitary norms and rules “Industrial buildings” stipulates that in buildings with internal gutters a parapet may serve as a fence. Its minimum height is 60 centimeters. A smaller parapet is built up with a lattice fence to the notorious 0.6 meters from the roof surface.

SNiP 31-01-2003

In SNiP "Residential apartment buildings" fences are devoted to two different sections.

According to clause 7.2.14, emergency exits from the attic floors to the roof must be provided with platforms and transition bridges. And the sites themselves, and bridges, staircases and roofs, terraces and any potentially dangerous crossings must be fenced.

At the same time the height of the fence should be at least 120 centimeters. The regulatory document contains three more important requirements:

• Fencing должны быть непрерывными. Попросту говоря, вертикальные столбы (балясины) должны обязательно снабжаться горизонтальными перемычками.
• Flight of stairs and platforms are supplied with handrails.
• The minimum horizontal load that the barrier must withstand is 0.3 kN / m, or slightly less than 300 kilograms per linear meter.

It is difficult to damage such railings even intentionally.

Paragraph 8.11 just reminds once again that all operated roofs, dryers, sports fields and other open areas visited must meet safety requirements. To enclose.

SNiP 31-05-2003

Paragraph 7.3 of the sanitary norms “Public administrative buildings” requires that all dangerous places be fenced with railings and fences (for example, aluminum) with a height of at least 90 centimeters, preventing fall. Probably, the smaller minimum height of the staircase fence in this case is due to the fact that in administrative institutions, children rarely run up the stairs and roofs.

And here the presence of handrails is required; and here the railing must withstand at least 300 kilograms per linear meter horizontally.

Curiously, the strength requirement may seem excessive. However, remember: due to inertia, a person can collide with a static object with a force many times greater than its own weight.

SNiP 31-06-2009

For railings and railings of public buildings and buildings, several points are relevant:

3.24. On the roof, if it is above 10 meters, you need a fence. And strictly steel and the corresponding GOST 25772.

5.10. If in one room the floor has a height difference of more than a meter, then a fence with a height of at least 90 cm is provided along the perimeter of the elevation. Where children can attend, the height increases to 1.1 meters.

However: the side of the stage facing the auditorium is not enclosed.

5.12. Stairs, balconies, loggias, terraces and other potentially dangerous areas are enclosed. And here the minimum height of the railing is 90 centimeters; and here we need handrails; and here the minimum strength is limited. Of course, the same 300 kilograms per linear meter.

Fencing of the exploited roof.

SNiP 21-01-97

The requirements from the point of view of fire regulations are regulated here. In general, the SNiP in clause 8.11 duplicates the first mentioned federal law 123-F3:

• With a roof slope of up to 12 degrees inclusive and a height of more than 10 meters, as well as a slope of more than 12 degrees and a height of more than 7 meters, the roof is enclosed. Requirements for fencing refer us again to GOST 25772.
• Operable roofs, stairs, balconies, loggias and landings are fenced in accordance with the requirements of the same standard, regardless of height.

GOST 25772-83

Completing this, it must be admitted, is quite a tedious list of state standards for steel railings and fences. It is necessary to stipulate that it is only partially connected with safety requirements. The standard was adopted, as it is easy to see by its name, in 1983 and is intended to regulate, above all, the production of industrial barriers - quality and tolerances.

Let's try to extract the most important information from its text.

The effective height of the staircase fence (from the lower longitudinal element to the top point) is equal to:

• For internal stairs - 800 millimeters (in this case, the height from the point of attachment of the fence to the march to the top point of the fence in the vertical should be equal to at least 900 millimeters).
• For external stairs - 1100 mm (1200 from the level of the march).
• For staircases in preschool institutions - 1180 millimeters.

Ladder march in kindergarten.

Railing height at the landing:

• Inside the building - 800 millimeters (900 from the surface of the site).
• Outside the building - 1100 millimeters at a height of 1200 from the surface of the site.
• Finally, in preschool institutions, the railing should be 1180 mm high.

Fencing балконов:

• With a building height of less than 30 meters (which corresponds to 10 floors) - 1000 millimeters from the floor level;
• With a building height of over 30 meters - 1100 millimeters.
• In preschool educational institutions - 1200 millimeters.

Finally, the roofs without parapet are enclosed with lattice steel railings 60 centimeters high.

Single-family houses

Stair design

When building a house with your own hands, the verbose, but very informative instruction set forth in SNiP 31-02 will be very useful.

• At least one internal staircase between each pair of floors of a residential building must be at least 90 centimeters wide. The requirement is related to the evacuation capabilities in case of fire.

If the appearance can be any, the width of the steps is limited by the requirements of fire safety.

• The maximum slope of the internal stairs is 1: 1.25. Again, this is about the convenience of evacuating a building that is smoke filled during a fire.
• In each flight of stairs, the steps must have the same dimensions - width and height. Moreover, their number per march should not exceed 18.
• For internal stairs, a step height of 125 to 200 millimeters is recommended, and a width of 210 to 355 mm.
• The length and width of each landing should not be less than the width of the adjacent staircase.
• If the outer staircase ends with a platform to which the door opens, the width of the platform must exceed the width of the door. It seems that the reasons for the request do not need an explanation.
• In curved stairs, the width of the steps in the center must be at least 20 centimeters, and in the narrow part - 15 cm.

Please note: for screw structures, this requirement is often impossible in principle - simply because of their design. Steps are welded around a relatively thin column.

If you increase the width of the steps at the column, the stairs will become inconvenient and ugly.

• Outdoor wooden stairs cannot touch the ground unless they are treated with an antiseptic compound.

Ramps

And their design is also regulated by the same set of sanitary norms and rules. Also, of course, for security reasons.

• Internal ramps should have a slope of not more than 10 degrees, external - no more than 12.
• The width of the internal ramp should not be less than the width of the adjacent openings, corridors and stairs.
• For an outdoor ramp, the minimum width is 1 meter.
• Where openings are opened on the ramp, horizontal platforms are made. Their width is equal to the width of the rest of the ramp; the length exceeds the width of the opening at least 30 centimeters on each side.
• Before openings at the ends of the ramp, horizontal platforms with a length of 90 centimeters or more are made.

Fencing

Any elevation of 600 millimeters or higher must be fenced off.

The photo - wooden railings on the perimeter of a low terrace.

The requirement applies not only to balconies, terraces and galleries. The list includes:

• Any external staircase with three or more steps and any ramp, provided that the difference in height between the ground and their upper point is equal to or greater than 600 millimeters.
• The boundaries of the ceiling around the internal staircase.

Wherein:

• The height of any internal or external fence must be at least 90 centimeters.
• For balconies, loggias, external stairs and terraces with a height of the surface from the ground level of more than 1,800 millimeters, the requirements are more stringent: 1,070 millimeters are the minimum.

A couple of requirements are related to child safety:

1. Any opening in the fence should not be wider than 10 centimeters. Alas, a frequent cause of accidents is the child's attempts to push his head into the lattice or between balusters.
2. No element should give an opportunity to climb over the railing. The tendency of children to force obstacles (including quite complex ones) is another headache of young parents.

Finally, if glass is used, it must be absolutely safe. The recommended list includes laminated, tempered and reinforced glass. Alas, the price per square meter of any of these materials is much higher than that of ordinary glass of similar thickness.

Hardened glass, even breaking, literally shatters into crumb. But when falling through a broken fence made of ordinary glass, heavy cuts are inevitable.

Railing and handrails

They are required:

• At least on one side of the stairs with a width of less than 110 centimeters and on both sides with a greater width.
• On both sides of curved stairs.

Handrails are not required for internal stairs with the number of steps no more than two, and external with the number of steps no more than three.

Attention: an exception is the case when it is envisaged to move people with reduced mobility along the stairs.

There are a number of requirements associated with handrails and railings.

• At least one of them must be continuous along the entire length of the ladder. The exception is when the railing is broken by doorways.
• The handrail should not protrude beyond the end of the fence no more than 30 centimeters.
• The height of the handrail in the fence for the stairs or ramps - from 800 to 1000 millimeters, for the platform - from 800 to 1100 millimeters.
• If there are small children in the house, it is recommended to install a second handrail of an appropriate height.
• If the handrail is mounted on the side of the wall, there must be a distance of at least 40 millimeters between it and its surface.
• In this case, any enclosing structures should not reduce the width of the flight of stairs relative to the required more than 100 millimeters.
• The maximum distance between the fixing points of the handrails or the railing is 1200 millimeters.

In this design, you can not worry about the reliability of fixing the railing.

• At the same time, the railings at each attachment point must be fastened with at least two screws that penetrate their material by at least 3 centimeters.

Conclusion

Dear reader, you didn’t get dizzy from the list of requirements for only one section of construction? The good news is that sanitary standards are advisory in nature. However, their implementation is in your interest.

In the presented video in this article you will find additional information on this topic. Successes in construction!