Stairs and railings

What you'll do

Add stairs between levels and railings where people need them. A stair works out its own steps from the height between the levels, keeps them within the usual residential limits, puts handrails on its open sides and cuts its stairwell in the floor above.

Draw a stair

1. On the level the stair starts from, open Build and choose Stair.
2. Choose the kind — Straight, L with a landing, U with a landing or L with winders — which way it turns, its width and where its handrails go.
3. Click where the stair starts: the middle of the front edge of the bottom step.
4. Move the pointer the way the stair goes up; the steps follow it, with the number of risers and treads. It snaps to the walls and to 15° steps; hold ⇧Shift to keep it square.
5. Click. EscEsc starts again.

How the steps are worked out

The height between the level's floor and the level above is split into equal risers no higher than 7¾", and each tread is 10" deep (both can be changed in Properties). A landing counts as one step; winders are three steps fanned around the inside corner. Change a level's height and every stair on it is worked out again.

Change a stair

Pick it (click it on the plan or in the 3D view) and change in Properties: its kind and turn, width, highest riser, tread depth, handrails and their height, and Cut the floor above for the stairwell. The risers and treads it ended up with are shown underneath.

The stairwell

When the level above has a floor, the stair cuts it where the steps would have less than 6'-8" of headroom. The cut moves with the stair and goes away when the stair is deleted.

Draw a railing

1. Open Build and choose Railing.
2. Choose Guardrail (36" high) or Handrail and its height.
3. Click along the edge — a deck, a balcony, around a stairwell — and double-click or press ReturnEnter to finish.

Railings get posts at their ends and corners and balusters with gaps under 4". Pick one to change its kind, height or how far above the floor it starts.

What's saved

A stair is saved as an IFC stair made of stair flights (with their risers, treads, riser height and tread length), landings, winders and handrails; the stairwell is an opening in the floor slab above. Railings are IFC railings with their length and their number of balusters and posts.