Meghan: Stair parts can be confusing because they use a terminology most people are not familiar with. But if you plan on getting a custom staircase built or having your staircase replaced, you need to know that terminology. And to learn the name of each of the different stair parts I am here today at Adams Stair Works.
I am hitting the road, searching for answers and finding great design. It is a quest of beauty, function and of course inspiration.
Male: Well first thing you got to decide when you are going and shopping for your stair parts is you had to decide a construction technique in which to build your stair. There are two basic techniques for our stair building. First is post to post construction where the railing will hit the side of a square newel or a ball top newel.
Meghan: All right so that means basically just hand rail will hit straight into that?
Male: Straight into the newel.
Meghan: And post which are the newel..
Male: Correct. Which is the newel it is just screwed in. It is the simplest, the most cost effective way to join a railing to a post. The other method is post over construction that is where the railing goes over the post and you have extra fittings involved that sit on top of a pin top post. Okay. And you have to make connections to the handrail. This being a lot more costly because you have extra parts, you have the labor to put it together.
Meghan: Post over construction could be considered an upgraded version of the post to post construction because it requires extra parts.
Male: This is called a cap and it just sits on the top of the post like so, it would be used in an instance where the post is an in post and there is no other rail going beyond. The rail would go to decide. If you have a volute which looks like this…
Meghan: So that is a volute?
Male: This is a volute.
Meghan: All right.
Male: Okay. And it is made up of a piece of rail that is shaped like this and it sits on the post like so. And there are spindles of course to go all around it.
Meghan: Other than those parts, post over and post to post staircases have the same stair parts in common and those parts could be considered the basic stair parts because they are found on all staircases.
So, let us go over the basics this is a handrail or what is this called?
Male: This is a handrail. The part you grip is actually called a handrail. These are called balusters or spindles and the whole component including the newel post is considered the balustrade.
Meghan: Some of the prettiest stair parts are the newel post which is the large mains of purpose of a staircase. Now, is it the front post the same in name as the middle post?
Male: This would be a landing post. Okay. And the top post on the stair is called a starter post.
Meghan: So the starter post is at the top.
Male: Okay. And this would just be the number one post. A lot of houses like in this display here, this is kind of considerably called a focal point newel, back at the turn of the century you would walk in to a grand entry in the house and you will see this great big massive newel post and then the rest of them were smaller newels. That is why we have here we call the focal point newel and then as you can see here the rest of them are smaller.
Meghan: Another basic stair part is an easement which is used to transition handrail between different pitch angles. A variation on an easement is a gooseneck.
Male: Okay, we have another fitting it is called a gooseneck. This fitting is made up of an easement and a piece of straight rail. That is installed whether it is a transition between different rail heights as in this installation here. you will the gooseneck goes up, now it goes across and hits that post with the same location as the other fit rail comes into it. That fitting is what we call a gooseneck.
Meghan: Is this a part of the baluster?
Male: No, this is not a part of the baluster.
Meghan: So, it is just this on up and down?
Male: Right. This is considered the stair. This component of the stair is called a stringer and this is open mitered stringer. And
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