Moving a staircase in a house ? anyone done it ?

Hi all.

We have recently bought a house to move into when I come out of the RAF. Originally it was a two bed end terrace and it has had a massive extension on the side which turns in into a four bed house with two reception rooms and a kitchen and a dinner.

Now due to the layout the stairs run stroght up between the two reception rooms against the original outside wall.

Ideally we really want to knock the two rooms together as sseparately they aren’t that big but together would be great.

To do it we need to move the staircase to the new outside wall.

Has anyone done anything similar before and if so was it a big job and costly ?

Cheers

Moving staircase in a house?

A home escalator? Not seen that before, but my gran has a Stannah.

draw it on the wall in chalk, use the rise and step dimensions of the existing one. check the head height (its usually step 5) any builder used to doing loft conversions will find it easy.
staircases dont support anything so taking out the old one is not normally a problem

Seen it done (girlfriends dad). Top tip – don’t pick it up and move it as a unit on your own. Other than that no problems.

you can buy a standard staircase from howdens or magnet trade for about 120 quids,then just add spindles handrail.

Easy enough job for an experinced joiner etc.

you’ll need to consider the impact on the first floor layout
all work will need to comply with building regs

Yes.

Put a new one in and then take out the old one – not the other way around 🙂

Planning/Regs is only really important if you’ll want to sell the house on.

Moving it to an outside wall could be an issue depending on which way your floor joists run.

If they run into the wall rather than along it, you need to support the floor joists somehow.

Write to Hogwarts?

Planning/Regs is only really important if you’ll want to sell the house on.

Which unlike a car which you can run into the ground and scrap, is a distinct possibility.

You will (99% sure here) need a building warrant as it will probably involve structural work, as such you would be subject to regs BUT in the case of stairs this can only be a good thing, modern stairs are designed to be a decent size and gradient.

Don’t arse about with non regulation stuff, having been on the recieving end of it myself any sensible buyer (or decent conveyancing lawyer) will be all over that and it’ll cost you to take out indemnity insurance (which in our case was worthless since the council weren’t bothered but the extension was still falling down – once bitten twice shy, dealbreaker next time).

So your knocking the old reception room and the later reception room together by removing part of the gable wall? That’s big structural stuff needing RSJ’s and number crunching, once that is done and the upstairs layout is sorted the staircase will be easy!

Remove probably from my earlier post. Skimmed over the gable end bit…

Anyone know if work done without building regs has an impact on your house insurance?

One can only assume that if it needs building regs, but doesn’t have it, then you insurance is probably void..

DrP

Put a new one in and then take out the old one – not the other way around

Booo !
Surely that’s a banhammer offence ?

we removed ours and installed a firemans pole and a kinetic trampoline, the ceiling is now damaged from missing the pole and hitting the trampoline, then the loft space.

You need to look at the layout of the first floor as all the circulation, doors etc will be in the wrong place if you move the stairs. Can you not post up some floor plans?

Bedtime reading….

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_AD_A_1992.pdf

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_ADK_1998.pdf

Cost us 5k for a solid oak staircase plus 1k labour for chippy to fit it. It’s a thing of beauty.

The old one didn’t comply with building regs so we had to move it.

How do I do some floor plans ? Any programs I can use ?

sketch some drawings then take them to an architect or structural engineer for evaluation and then they can create detailed drawings to be used for approval and design/purchase of new stairs etc

were there floor plans from thestsate agents you can link too

How do I do some floor plans ? Any programs I can use ?

paper and pencil would be a easy way, try graph paper

Knock the floor plans up in PowerPoint or viso at this stage they don’t need to be to plan they’ll just help you visualise the possible layouts / issues.

Knock the floor plans up in PowerPoint or viso at this stage they don’t need to be to plan scale they’ll just help you visualise the possible layouts