Think about it. Scenario: There is a storm and the electricity has gone off. Your mother is ill and needs to go to hospital. It’s night time. You live on the fifth floor. No problem she can probably manage 10 flights of steps. However there is no emergency lighting, the steps are a uniform dark colour so you can see the edge clearly, there are turning (triangle shaped) steps on each corner. Finally there is only a handrail on the “inside” of the stairwell. This is the side where the sharp narrow end to the triangle steps are. On the way down you are holding her right arm while she holds the one handrail with her left hand. Neither of you can see the step edges. You don’t have a handrail on your right side. On the way down your mother is tired and in pain. On the next step she partially misses the step just catching the narrow edge with the heal of her foot! She tries to support herself on the handrail but at the same time she tries to support herself on your arm. This unbalances you and you also make a misstep and hurt your ankle too. Now you both need hospital and you have to drive with a suspects pulled ligament. It could have been worse one or either of you may have fallen and seriously injured yourselves! Handrails need to be on both side of the stairway!
Please give us any suggestions or topics you want on the show! it would really help.
Handrails are very very important part of any vertical circulation.
A basic of building construction. If done right, it can solve a lot of problems.
Think about it. Scenario: There is a storm and the electricity has gone off. Your mother is ill and needs to go to hospital. It’s night time. You live on the fifth floor. No problem she can probably manage 10 flights of steps. However there is no emergency lighting, the steps are a uniform dark colour so you can see the edge clearly, there are turning (triangle shaped) steps on each corner. Finally there is only a handrail on the “inside” of the stairwell. This is the side where the sharp narrow end to the triangle steps are. On the way down you are holding her right arm while she holds the one handrail with her left hand. Neither of you can see the step edges. You don’t have a handrail on your right side. On the way down your mother is tired and in pain. On the next step she partially misses the step just catching the narrow edge with the heal of her foot! She tries to support herself on the handrail but at the same time she tries to support herself on your arm. This unbalances you and you also make a misstep and hurt your ankle too. Now you both need hospital and you have to drive with a suspects pulled ligament. It could have been worse one or either of you may have fallen and seriously injured yourselves!
Handrails need to be on both side of the stairway!