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Railing Post (8)

There are about a dozen code requirements related to stair railings. We'll touch on a few of them here and you can finish reading the rest of the story in the Railing and Stairs section. To begin, regardless of what the railing looks like, it needs to have a handrail set between a height of 30 to 34 inches above an imaginary line drawn through the nosing of the stair treads (your local code may require a slightly different range so be sure to check). In other words, you need to measure straight up and down from the outside edge of a stair tread, the nose, to the top of the handrail. This is easily done with the aid of a level standing on end at the edge of the stairs.

So what constitutes a handrail? Well, although the top of stair railings may serve as a handrail, usually it doesn't. The reason for this is that by code handrails have to meet "graspability" rules. What this means is that the handrail has to be easily grabbed by the young and old; it can't be too wide or too tall. Otherwise, people won't be able to get their hand around it when they need it the most. Since the top cap of most railings is a 2x4 or 2x6 laying flat or standing on edge, the cap does not meet one of several "graspability" rules. In particular, one rule states that the sum of the top and two sides of the handrail must be less than 6.25 inches total with a maximum width of 2.25 inches.

If you elect to install a separate handrail, make sure to get good brackets. There is usually a selection of two or more standard handrail brackets to choose from. Spend the extra dollar and get the stout ones. Using purchased brackets will help ensure you meet two other handrail codes. The first requires that there is at least a 1.5 inch gap between the handrail and the wall and the second states that the handrail may not project into the stairway more than 3.5 inches.

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