Building Regulations

Guides in this hub

• UK Staircase Building Regulations, Explained

  Stair regulations for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in plain English: rise, going, pitch, headroom and guarding.

• Staircase headroom: how much you need and how to check it

  How much headroom a UK staircase needs: the 2 metre rule, and the reduced allowance for a loft conversion.

• Staircase handrail requirements: height, sides and grip

  What UK regulations require of a stair handrail: the 900mm to 1000mm height, and when you need one side or both.

• Staircase guarding and balustrade: height and the 100mm rule

  What UK building regulations require of staircase guarding and balustrade: where it is needed, the 900mm height, the 100mm sphere gap rule, and why it must not be easy for a child to climb.

• Private staircase dimensions: rise, going and pitch

  The rise, going and pitch rules for a UK private staircase, the 2R+G formula, and why every rise must be equal.

• Staircase building regulations: Northern Ireland

  The staircase building regulations for Northern Ireland under Technical Booklet H (2012): rise, going, pitch, risers per flight, width, headroom, handrails and guarding, and how they differ from England, Wales and Scotland.

• Staircase building regulations: Scotland

  The staircase building standards for Scotland under the Domestic Technical Handbook, Section 4: rise, going, pitch, risers, width, headroom, handrails and guarding, and the figures that differ from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

• Staircase building regulations: Wales

  Wales does not use England's Approved Document K. It runs the 1998 edition, the private stair rise and going are genuinely different, and the Welsh minimum going is not England's 220mm.

• Do wooden stairs need to be fire rated in a house?

  In an ordinary two-storey house there is no fire rating for the stair timber. A protected stairway starts above 4.5m.

• A worked example of a compliant staircase (England)

  A compliant England private staircase can be, for example, 13 risers at 200mm rise with a 250mm going, giving a 38.7 degree pitch and 2R plus G of 650mm, all inside Approved Document K. Here it is drawn out and tabled.

• General access and utility staircase regulations

  Approved Document K sets shallower, stricter rules for general access and utility stairs than for a private domestic stair.

• Staircase accessibility: Approved Document M and the M4 categories (England)

  How Approved Document M treats staircases in English dwellings: the M4(1), M4(2) and M4(3) categories, the optional 850mm stair-width rule for a future stairlift, and why this M4 system is England-only.

• A worked example of a compliant staircase (Scotland)

  A compliant Scottish private staircase can be, for example, 13 risers at 200mm rise with a 240mm going, giving a 39.8 degree pitch, all inside the Domestic Technical Handbook. Note the Scottish figures differ from England: 225mm minimum going and a 16-riser cap per flight.

• A worked example of a compliant general access (commercial) staircase

  A compliant general access staircase, for a shared or public building rather than a home, is shallower than a domestic one: for example a 165mm rise with a 275mm going, giving a 31 degree pitch. A flight is capped at 12 risers, so a full storey height usually has to be split with a landing.

• A worked example of a compliant staircase (Wales)

  A worked example of a private staircase that complies in Wales: 13 risers at a 200mm rise with a 250mm going, a 38.7 degree pitch. Wales pairs its rise and going in bands, so an England-legal stair can fail here.

• A worked example of a compliant staircase (Northern Ireland)

  Northern Ireland uses Technical Booklet H, not Approved Document K. A compliant private example is 13 risers at 200mm rise with a 240mm going, giving a 39.8 degree pitch. The key NI points are a 16-riser cap per flight and a 220mm minimum going.