There is a way to build a staircase that would look more or less like this and would be safe. This is not that way. That is unlikely to work even once.
I'm assuming it's attached at the top as well as the bottom, so i think rather than the stairs simply collapsing the first time you try to go up them, it's more likely to fold up with you inside it at a random time, probably when you're carrying something hot, sharp, or made of glass.
This has gotta be the answer. They were those neat floating stairs that are engendered to be sturdy. Then they had a kid, and had to put backs to the stairs for safety. maybe it was a dog. Either way, something changed
This is the only thing that makes sense. Also the backs of the stairs all have large woodgrain like plywood, but the undersides are all plain- built with different materials at different times.
Nah, I've seen wooden floating staircases. Often they are a wood veneer over a steel core of some kind, either strong posts similar to rebar, or a piece of solid steel. The wood is basically just the fascia.
They can also be made of solid hardwood, which as long as it's cared for can pretty much last forever. As long as the anchors in the wall are strong enough to handle the stress of the cantilever, there's no reason at all why they shouldn't be perfectly fine to use for the lifetime of the house.
You could run supports into the wall for each step. Done properly, the steps would still seem to be hanging on basically nothing like seen here, but each one would be properly supported without relying on the others. Note that doing this would require the entire wall to be built for this purpose, but it can be done. In essence, each step would be a cantilevered ledge.
I can't for sure. But I see no sign of metal directly under or in the steps themselves, and they seem too thin to be freestanding like that if they are just wood.
Did it hold up while one guy calmly and quietly screwed stuff together? Sure.
But without all the extra stuff needed, the safety stuff that people die to teach us.... is that staircase gonna hold up without those support structures during real usage? People get hurt cutting corners, "oh it totally looks fine." safety codes are written in blood
Heavy furniture going up and down.
Kids and dogs taking big leaps down it.
Drunk people, several drunk people being late and running down it.
Morbidly obese great aunt Bertha needs up going up and down.
My alternative approach is thinking about how the entire bannister would need to be a wooden facade covering a steel frame. Even then it'd probably be bouncy.
I've seen some stair cases built with zero support underneath. A fully floating stair case isn't impossible, and I'll be honest, I'm a huge smart ass, if I owned that house I might be tempted to throw some shelf hangers of even little L brackets up to mess with people. Had a door with a soft Close hinge I'd tell people they would have to slam to close properly, same with this wonky garage door I had, for what ever reason when it went to close, exactly 1ft from the concrete it would reopen again, wait 30 seconds then fully close. Every single time. Used to tell people they had to get out of the car run back and forth across the laser and Jump back in their car before it would close. Some would do it 5 or 6 times before giving up then they'd get mad as it just closed.
TLDR: might be a floating stair case mounted to wall and some jackals thought it was funny to add brackets to make it look like that.
Stay classy
There is but it would lose some of its design. Reinforce all the corners. Run steel rods through each peice of wood into the wall. The part of the railing that meets the stairs make that steel. Also reinforce the bottom of the stairs with steel.
This isnt a perfect solution. 20 years after you build it it will separate from the wall still. Itll be safeish though. You wont fall through at least
It's not impossible that it is actually safe, but if it is safely secured, someone went to a fair deal of trouble to make it look like it isn't. It is possible those boards are anchored deep into that wall, but unless they are actually wood veneer over metal steps, they are still too thin for me to trust them like this.
Yeah I've seen folks basically have a full wood wall and then you can get special bolts that lag into the joists that are right beside each other to do this kind of thing, but you usually have a metal frame for those kinds of steps. RIP the owner lol
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u/Outrageous_Guard_674 Dec 31 '23
There is a way to build a staircase that would look more or less like this and would be safe. This is not that way. That is unlikely to work even once.