A garden staircase is a permanent flight of steps that joins two levels of your outdoor space, whether that is a patio down to a lawn, a raised terrace down to a lower garden, or a back door onto sloping ground. The ones that look right and last are made for the site rather than bought off a shelf, built in steel that has been hot-dip galvanised, then powder coated, and fitted with guarding that meets the Building Regulations. This is how Steel Stairs and Gates goes about that work.
Where a garden staircase earns its place
Much of Kent, Surrey and South London sits on slopes, and plenty of gardens have a change in level of a metre or more between the house and the far boundary. Timber sleepers and paved ramps have their place, but once the drop passes a few steps a fabricated steel flight becomes the more sensible answer.
Situations we are regularly asked to solve:
- A raised patio or deck with a drop to the lawn that needs guarding and a tidy way down.
- A split-level garden where the upper and lower halves are joined only by a muddy path.
- A first-floor kitchen or living room that wants direct access to the garden.
- An old concrete or timber stair that has crumbled or rotted and needs replacing.
Choosing the shape of the flight
The site decides most of this. A straight flight is the simplest to build and the easiest to walk, and it suits a slope with room for the full run. Where the level change is bigger than a straight run allows, a quarter-turn or half-turn flight with an intermediate landing breaks the climb into two shorter sections and keeps the footprint compact.
When there is very little ground to work with, a spiral staircase fits into a small circle and takes you down through a full storey. Spirals are steeper than straight stairs and less comfortable for carrying things, so they suit a secondary route rather than the main way in and out.
Steel, and why it is galvanised first
Steel carries load in slim sections, can be shaped to any plan and fixes securely to walls, concrete pads or posts set into the ground. Left bare it rusts, so every mild steel staircase we make is hot-dip galvanised before it is coloured. The finished fabrication goes into a bath of molten zinc, which bonds to every surface, including the inside of hollow sections and the corners a brush would miss. Powder coating goes on top in any RAL colour, so a dark grey or black flight sits quietly against planting, or a brighter shade picks up the joinery on the house. Stainless steel is the alternative where a bare metal look is wanted.
Treads and infill
Open steel treads let rain and leaves fall through, which keeps the steps drier and cleaner in winter. Timber treads on a steel frame give a warmer feel underfoot. Balustrade infill can be vertical steel bars, glass panels where you want to keep a view, or timber to match a deck.
Guarding, step sizes and the regulations
An outdoor staircase at a house is covered by Approved Document K of the Building Regulations. The points that most affect a garden flight are these:
- Guarding is needed wherever there is a drop of more than 600 mm from the edge of the stair or landing.
- External guarding at a dwelling should be at least 1100 mm high, against 900 mm for stairs inside the house.
- Gaps in the balustrade should be too small for a 100 mm sphere to pass through, which stops small children slipping between the bars.
- Every rise and every going in a flight should be the same, so nobody misjudges a step in the dark.
Where Building Control needs to see the design, for instance a stair that forms part of an extension or serves a new external door, we provide scaled drawings and structural calculations as part of the job. Planning is a separate matter. A modest stair in an ordinary garden rarely needs permission, but a listed building or a conservation area changes the picture, so check with your local planning authority before you commit.
How the job runs
Every garden staircase starts with a free site survey. We come out, take levels between the two terraces or floors, look at what the stair will fix to and what the ground is doing, and talk through shape, treads and colour with you.
From the survey you receive a fixed quotation and, where needed, the drawings for Building Control. The flight is fabricated in the workshop, sent for galvanising and coating, and then installed by the same team that made it. The people who drew it are the people who bolt it down.
We work from 4 Fort Cottages on Westerham Hill and cover Kent, Surrey and South London, including Biggin Hill, Bromley, Keston, Croydon, Orpington, Sevenoaks, Oxted, Caterham and Westerham itself.
Looking after an outdoor staircase
A galvanised and powder coated stair asks for very little. Sweep leaves off the treads in autumn so water is not held against the coating, and check once a year that the fixings into the wall or pad are still tight. Touch up any chip in the coating before the zinc beneath has to do all the work.
If you have a slope, a drop or a tired old stair you would like replaced, send a photo of it to 07861 936 888 or through the quote form and you will have a written estimate back the same working day. Someone picks up the phone at any hour, seven days a week, and our garden staircases page explains the options in more detail.