Balau Stairway and balustrade – Durban North – July 2011

http://blog.thewoodjoint.co.za/2013/08/01/stairs-and-balustrade-durban-north-july-2011/
Balau Stairway and balustrade – Durban North – July 2011
This wood stair job started as just a few stairs to acquire access to the granny flat from the opposite side of the lawn after which it progressed into a small balaster on either side too. The client initially had a fence there of CCA pine slats which we had to clear away and then assemble our stairway. She needed to then fit some sort of fence on either side to help keep dogs out and initially we were going to re-use many of the CCA pine slats. After speaking to her we agreed that a wood balaster at the exact same height as the stairway would finish it off a lot more neatly and add a lot more value to her home.

The stairs were fairly simple and we used two stringers on each side of 30 x 228 balau. We then attached cleats at the required height for each tread. For the cleats we used 30 x 40 balau and for the treads we used 30 x 140 and doubled them up to get a tread of 285 wide with a 5mm gap in between each board. This type of stairs can only really be about 1m wide before you need to increase the thickness of your timber to 40mm. If the timber is too thin and the steps are too wide then the tread will bend each time someone walks on it. If you want to make your stairs wider than 1m then you must use a 40mm thick piece of balau. If you are using pine then this thickness needs to be increased even more because pine is so much softer than balau.

I prefer to use a different system when building wide stairs. One can add an extra stringer in the middle to give it support. However the stringers on the end have the cleats attached to the inside of them. The stringer in the middle cannot have the cleat attached to the inside as the stringer itself will protrude above the level of the tread. So you will need to cut recesses out of the middle stringer so that the tread can sit on a flat surface.

Wooden stairs
Click to enlarge

The other alternative to this is to build a structure underneath each tread on which deck boards are attached. This method is common in building stairs with closed risers. The above method and the one we used on this build is common for stairs with open risers.

We had a challenge on this job in that the wall that we were going to attach to wasn’t straight and looked as if it had been moving over the years. So instead of attaching to the wall we sunk some posts in the ground and concreted them in. This way the wall can continue to move without pushing or pulling our stairs over.

We filled our holes with epoxy and saw dust mixture to get a colour match and sealed it this time using Timberlife Ultra Care Gold. The Ultra Care Gold has a higher wax content and is suitable for vertical pieces of timber where the sun’s rays are not as direct as the horizontal pieces.

I went back to this client’s house to repair a broken fence and our stairs and balustrade are still as good as they were when we built them. They need to be re-sealed again but otherwise the balau has held up well.

For a free no obligation quote on your outdoor timber construction please call me on 082 496 5444 or use the form below to submit your enquiry. If it’s just advice you are after, leave a comment in the comments section and I will try to assist you.