In addition to counseling you to violate the building code I hope your architect explanined the purpose of the 4" ball rule. Perhaps you could tap into the architect's liability insurance if you are ever sued but since intentional code violations are illegal I'm not sure it would be covered.

A cable would have to be tight enough to convince a building inspector that a child could not slip under it and be strangled by it. I suspect it would need to be in the middle of the space so it would be impossible to stretch it enough for a 4" ball to pass. A rigid rod would probably be more convincing.

I've never liked open riser stairs because the space below a stair is rarely interesting or very useful and it can be disorienting for the elderly not to mention the obvious danger to small childrern.

You could make the rise 7 3/8" and the treads 11 deep and 3 1/2" thick with a 1 1/4 x 2 3/8 notch out of the front lower edge creating a bullnose nosing. The recess below the nosing could be painted black or featured with another finish. The open space would be slightly less than 4 inches in height.

Have you ever seen a child get their head stuck because of violation of this rule? My DH has. The staircase had to be cut apart by the fire department because the parents were too terrified by their hysterical child to do it themselves. (he wasn't the parent)

The best examples of open riser stairs I have seen were where thick treads were used. Very nice.

Here are some photos from a commercial setting that have the thick treads and a short rise--I assume that any commercial building built in the past few years would need to pass the 4" test too. The stairs in the link below are translucent and awesome to look at but I don't like walking up them. The stairs in this link are a solid material and are easier to walk up- http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gibbard.com/Madison_WI/OvertureCenter/OvertureCenter-Interior-Img61-pe.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.gibbard.com/Madison_WI/OvertureCenter/OvertureCenter.htm&usg=__bnPHCR8QdXZuKHN2tKDZ-B_deg0=&h=525&w=700&sz=45&hl=en&start=28&um=1&tbnid=MSsFPMRZha104M:&tbnh=105&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Doverture%2Bcenter%2Bmadison%2Bwisconsin%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GGIH_en%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1

Here is a link that might be useful: Open riser stairs

MacV - I agree, the rod is probably better than the cable. As for the liability, the architect is my father, so I'm not sure if I could sue!
The reason I wanted to go with the open staircase is that it is U-shaped and located in the corner of the structure. It has landings that are bumped out from the structure with windows. I was hoping the open risers would help bring light in to the basement...

I too want to replace my current staircase with stairs that are open in the back for letting more light in. I found Mylen Stairs, which has several metal 'T' frames (not correct word). Why would they sell them if you need to enclose the back. In their brochure they show them in homes and public places. Just when I finally find something I like.....:(

Not all parts of the US have a residential building code.

Most US jurisdictions do have a residential building code and most US states now enforce one statewide...thanks to the Federal Government who forced them to implement one or risk losing FEMA money after natural disasters.

(Same thing the Feds did to States a few years ago by threatening to withhold Federal highway money if they did not raise their drinking ages to 21.)

You can check here to see if your State uses the ICC Codes and which version:

http://www.iccsafe.org/gr/Documents/stateadoptions.pdf

That said, open risers within a dwelling (even if approved with a less than 4" opening for the risers) may still become useless or illegal if the stairs are egress stairs and are required to have their underside protected with drywall to provide a quick evacuation in even of a fire.

Most US Codes require the underside of egress stairs to be covered with drywall to prevent their collapse and to effect safe escape if a fire occurs on a lower story.

Won't be any protection from flames and smoke if a fire occurs in a well below stairs with open risers.

Check your local codes.

Trying to skirt your and your family's life safety for esthetics is not a wise design option...regardless of who is suggesting it....or at the price it may be being offered...

"Most US Codes require the underside of egress stairs to be covered with drywall"

The 2003 International Residential Code only requires gypsum board protection under a stair only if that space is enclosed and accessible.

Open riser stairs are not required to be fire protected.

manhattan- I looked at the 'codes' for Wyoming, but I don't know what the letters stand for at the top.....
I called the city building inspector and talked to him about several things in Wyoming. It seems the counties (me) do not have ANY codes- he said I could build a house out of cardboard boxes and it is ok. The only thing he said was the septic had to be 100 feet from the house. Seems weird to have a law about that and not care about anything else.
Also, you do not need a license/be a contractor. You have to be registered to work in the city. Scary

Macv misquoutes me and takes my comments entirely out of context when he falsely alleges I only said:

"Most US Codes require the underside of egress stairs to be covered with drywall"

When in fact I fully stated:

"Most US Codes require the underside of egress stairs to be covered with drywall to prevent their collapse and to effect safe escape IF A FIRE OCCURS ON A LOWER STORY. "

And I also stated:

"That said, open risers within a dwelling (even if approved with a less than 4" opening for the risers) may still become useless or illegal if the stairs are egress stairs AND ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE THEIR UNDERSIDE PROTECTED WITH DRYWALL to provide a quick evacuation in even of a fire."

The International Residential Code requires drywall on the underside of egress stairs when they are enclosed with side walls underneath and the space below the stairs is accessible.

This construction technique accounts for about 99% of all stairs constructed in North America.

Those few stairs that are not enclosed with walls below them and whose areas below are not accessible would not require drywall on the underside by Code.

That is not to say, however, that leaving the underside of stairs unprotected from fire at any time is a ever a good thing...or that open risers constitutes safe stairway construction when it comes to fire and egress.

It isn't.

The underside of stairs should still be fire protected and closed risers still used in all cases and as part of a safe and proper design regardless of whether Code 'requires' the practice or not.

Your life and the lives of those you love can depend on it...

Codes are bare 'minimums' for safe construction and should NEVER be relied upon as the MOST you should do to assure your family's safety.

Building ABOVE 'minimum' code requirement is the first step toward building safely...for stairs...and for anything else.

ilmbg said:
"manhattan- I looked at the 'codes' for Wyoming, but I don't know what the letters stand for at the top.....
I called the city building inspector and talked to him about several things in Wyoming. It seems the counties (me) do not have ANY codes- he said I could build a house out of cardboard boxes and it is ok. The only thing he said was the septic had to be 100 feet from the house. Seems weird to have a law about that and not care about anything else.
Also, you do not need a license/be a contractor. You have to be registered to work in the city. Scary "

The State of Wyoming, according to the International Codes Council link, indicates that only the commercial International Building Code, the International Fire Code, the International Mechanical Code, and the International Fuel Gas Code has been adopted for statewide implementation in your Wyoming.

The International Residential Code (and others) are only adopted at the local level if at all.

You can see if your county or municipality enforces any of the residential, energy or other commercial codes here:

http://www.iccsafe.org/gr/Documents/jurisdictionadoptions.pdf

I didn't "falsely allege" anything. By definition, an open riser stair does not have an enclosed space below it so there is no code requirement for the underside of such a stair to be protected with drywall. If you had understood the IRC you wouldn't have brought the issue up.

There are many communities in the US that have no residential building code but the ICC doesn't go to the trouble of listing them because they are in the business of selling their particular version of that kind of building code.

You would save your self the trouble of defending your statements if you read the code before making them.

As for increasing the fire safety of a residential stairway, just adding drywall to the bottom of the stair in question would do little or nothing to prevent the passage of hot gasses and smoke to the upper level or to protect occupants as they used the stair. To provide increased fire safety it would be necessary to enclose all sides of the stair and provide a protected connection to the exterior of the house.

This level of protection of egress is required for 2-family dwellings but not for single-family ones. This is because the laws of this country make a distinction between life safety in buildings open to the "public" (including rental units) and that of private residences. It even makes a distinction in a rental unit between a stair used to exit the unit and one that is entirely within the unit.

Therefore residential building codes aren't really intended to be "bare minimum" requirements but instead are carefully written to strike a balance between unnecessary and unreasonable dangers to private citizens in their homes and unnecessary and unreasonable impositions on their lifestyles. Such provisions must also be balanced with cost since codes can have a major effect on the affordability of housing and the employment of workers. It is therefore rare that much of an improvement in life safety can be made without sacrificing some desirable design features or greatly increasing the cost of the house.

If you provide a fire rated egress stair from an upper level of a home to exterior grade or add sprinklers, the fire safety of the house would be increased greatly but adding drywall to the bottom of an otherwise open stair would not. Minor measures that might make a difference in a fire would be to use more substantial doors to bedrooms and educating your family about closing those doors, calling 911, and using the âÂÂemergency escapeâ windows required by the code. An open stair should never be the only escape route in a home.

We had thought of using open riser u-shaped stairs to bring light to our basement during constructon, but he time to fabricate the stairs would have been a big delay, so we just opened up the walls under the stairs. I really like the light that we get into the basement from these stiars-it balances out the light from the window. I think it looks better in person than the pictures show, but you can get the idea. I had thought that noise might be an issue because we don't have a door at the bottom of the basement stairs, but it isn't at all and the basement is where our teenage boys spend all of their time--I think that carpeting the basement stairs was key to controlling the noise though. The first picture is taken at the top of our basement stairs and the fifth picture is taken from the bottom of our basement stairs. I would go with the open riser stairs over what we did if you have the chance to do it. This issue came up before on this forum, and someone had used the rods and posted a picture and they looked just fine.

Here is a link that might be useful: stairs

You're obviously not constrained by a national building code because the wedge shaped stair winder in the photo has been prohibited for 15 years. Such steps create interestingly dysfunctional handrails too. It usually doesn't take much space to avoid such issues and modern 6" minimum tread winders rarely save any space at all so full corner landings are best.

We had the wedge shaped winders in our last house and liked them so used them again in this house because we wanted to. The handrails worked out just fine. Our stairs comply with the code where we live.

Yet another community that doesn't enforce the IRC. Mine doesn't either but does require a minimum winder tread dim. of 3" (IRC requires 6").

I suggest adding a vertical grab bar on the wall above at the pointed end of the winders since the sudden and excessive reduction in tread depth at that location can cause people to fall.

In the 25 years that we have had winder stairs like this, no one has ever fallen. We do have a vertical grab bar at the wind going down the basement. We don't have one, and I don't think that we need one, at the wind on the stairs between the first and second floor because there are handrails on both sides but it would be easy to add one to the newel post at the wind if it ever became an issue. The dimension of our winder treads do not go down to 0", but I have never measured them to see how deep they are at the wind.

The traditional design goal is for the winder tread depth (measured at a distance of 12" from the narrow end) to be the same dimension as the other treads in the stair run in order to avoid a sudden change under foot. For 10 inch treads that requires the regular treads to be offset about 2 inches from the winder tread at the narrow end.

Modern national consensus codes (like the IRC) go one better and require a 6" minimum dim. at that end of the tread which essentially reduces the 12" distance mentioned above to about 6" on the assumption that no one is likely to place their foot any closer to the end of the tread.

Of course, as long as people walk in the middle of the stairway, aren't in a hurry, aren't elderly, aren't carrying anything, and the lighting is adequate, there shouldn't be a problem even with wedge shaped winders.

I can't see the link, but my father has wedge shaped winders in his house and I never realized how awkward they were until I moved away. If someone is coming down the stairs another person cannot go up (or vice versa). There is a wall on the wider side, and it is partially open on the narrow side. The house is a circa 1965 contemporary.

The built environment can be a particularly dangerous place for the young and the old because building is done by those in between. This imbalance is usually corrected by building codes where they are in effect.

Our stairs are 4' wide and two people can go up and down at the same time. And it is possible to carry something going up and down the stairs. Elderly people have gone up and down our stairs and people on crutches have gone up and down our stairs. Jeez, I posted my picture to show the OP how we had opened up our ushaped stairs to bring light down our basement, not to get a critique of our stairs. The OP was asking about open riser stairs and building stairs that would allow light into her basement. I never suggested that anyone use winder stairs and our winder stairs are already built and I wasn't asking for advice on them, so I never dreamed that I was opening myself up for all of this unsolicited and off-topic criticism when I posted my picture. Every design element has its flaws and benefits, and you get to decide the weight of the benefits/burdens yourself when you build your own home.

In the middle of a discussion about open risers stairs and the code restrictions thereof, you introduced a stair example with closed risers and winders which are prohibited by all national building codes. You should not be surprised or offended that others would not see that as an acceptable alternative.

I disagree. If you read the OP's responses, she says that one of the reasons that she wanted the open riser stairs was to get more light down her basement. I never said that closed riser winder stairs were an alternative to open riser stairs, but when it became apparent that open riser stairs may be a code issue I posted my picture to show that there might be other ways of getting light down the OP's basement if open riser stairs are prohibited. Winder stairs were never part of the issue being discussed and I never proposed closed riser winders as an alternative. I did propose the opening in the stair walls shown in my pictures as an alternative. I could understand a discussion on whether the openings in the stair walls in my pictures violated the code, but not the winder stairs themselves. You had already made your point that codes vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and you could have said that my stairs were an example of that, but going beyond that was off-topic. If people want to start a new topic, they are supposed to start a new thread.

I'm just trying to help people design their houses. To that end, I will make whatever comments I think are appropriate about any design issues that are presented here. If the members here don't want that I will stop.

The members don't want you to stop. You are a professional, and we appreciate your advice. However, the forum is for professionals and ordinary homeowners and the forum works best, IMO, if ordinary homeowners are encouraged to post pictures of their houses and they are encouraged to do that if they know that their pictures are being evaluated only for the purposes of the OP's thread. An anything goes policy, on the other hand, does not encourage people to post pictures, IMO, and makes them just regret doing that. If people want to get into an off topic discussion about someone's picture, then they should start a new thread and let the picture poster decide if they want to add their picture to that thread. That is, or used to be anyway, the protocol for this forum. Peace.

The original question was: "Does anyone have any photos of open riser solutions that meet the 4-inch test?"

You introduced another topic regarding getting light to a basement that had nothing to do with the question and now you lecture me about off topic responses and protocol.

If you would rather the forum be a place to congratulate each other on home design and avoid critical design issues then you don't need input from professionals.

The OP's next response said this, which introduced the topic of light to her original question:

"The reason I wanted to go with the open staircase is that it is U-shaped and located in the corner of the structure. It has landings that are bumped out from the structure with windows. I was hoping the open risers would help bing light in to the basement..."

I did not say the forum should be a place to congratulate each other on home design and avoid critical design issues. I have no problem with your statements about the codes applicable to winder stairs and your suggestion for the grab bar, which we already have and is a good suggestion. But my stairs are already built and not going to be changed and no one responding to the thread even suggested that they were thinking about building winder stairs, so it served no constructive purpose for you and Sue to go beyond the code issues and give your personal opinions on my stairs other than to make me, the home owner who was criticized for building the winder stairs, to regret posting a picture on this forum, and doing things that discourage homeowners from posting picgtures of their already built/can't be changed homes is not good for the forum, IMO.

I did measure the depth of our treads at the wind, and the minimum depth at the wind (at the wall) is 4-1/2", so our code is probably like the code in your area.

So, does anyone have a photo of a compliant open riser staircase? ;-)

Fyi, here's an old version of floor plan if anyone wants to see where the stair case is located.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Here are some pictures of open riser stairs that are compliant with a Wisconsin building code that has the less than 4" requirement. A friend of mine who is an interior designer sent them to me. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Open riser stairs

I believe filling the space above the 4" maximum opening is what archson is trying to avoid and photos of the use of a rod are hard to find.

When the offset to the other treads at the narrow end of a winder equals or exceeds half a tread, the use of the winder no longer shortens the total length of the stair run. I believe it is the intent of the current code to effectively eliminate the use of winders without outlawing them.

Thanks for the photos. It looks like they have solved the problem by using thicker treads... I was hoping to avoid that solution.
I'm actually fairly surprised there isn't more info about a work around for this problem, given the number of open riser stair cases that appear in the print media. Another solution could be to run a strip of wood along the bottom of the stair, but not at the edge of the nosing, similar to the ones here:

http://i49.tinypic.com/21e7ub5.jpg

I've also in the mean time found some photos of staircases with rods...(and some other solutions)

http://www.stairplan.co.uk/openplan.htm

We are putting in open stair risers. The thick treads are very expensive. We are taking three pieces of wood and sandwiching them together instead. Another solution that I saw somewhere (I think houzz.com) put a lip of made out of the same wood as the tread, similiar to the plexi glass you first mentioned.

Oh I see you ate one two, Awesome!

Oh WOW! My kids (and even myself) would be over the moon if we had this staircase!!! Must NEVER let them see that!

I've gotten an open-tread staircase (1965) with littles. We have gates on either end, but I love the rod idea for a retrofit. Enclosing is not an option--the stair is a major source of light for the lower hall.