Floating Staircase

Here is some detail on how I built 3 sets of Floating Oak Stairs for our Barn conversion.

I used European White Oak 26mm Thick and various widths, all steelwork was fabricated from drawings supplied to a local fabrication shop

First I designed the steps so that the internal steel could be fabricated, I passed this to a Fabrication Shop to make and they would also cut into the wall and mount them on the blockwork wall prior to plastering.

Stair design is quite complex I would suggest reading the section of building Regulations to ensure you have things like the correct going, overlaps and minimum gaps.

I am aware that these photos dont show any glass banister but they will be coming at some point. One of the regs stipulates no gap of 100mm this drove the thickness of the step to mitigate and the 2 winders at the bottom were needed to bring the stair up into the bedroom above to leave lots of space in the room.

Here is a shot at the fabricators, as you can see its very robust. its a C section girder with 2 sections of box section welded together to form the step. there is a M12 thread formed in the centre of the end of the step to allow the Wood sleeve to be attached and any Balustrade

This is a little after the steel install as I have installed the floor and the walls are plastered, but you can see the steps sticking out the wall with an alignment steel still attached

I ordered the oak "Planed on 4 sides the correct dimension for the width of the step and a smaller width for the front back and side.

I used a biscuit cutter to glue and joint the sets together, this took a long time as there are 3 complete sets of stairs

everything was glued and clamped until dry, then sanded at 80 grit then 120

I used Osmo oil satin to treat them, the trick is to use 2 cloths, wipe it on thin with 1 and wipe it off with the other

the steps then had a hole drilled in the end, I slid them on the steps and tightened them down with a stainless hex bolt. any slack in the step was taken out with 1/2mm packers but i did not nead many