Steel cable ballustrade

[wanabechippie]

hey.

Halfway through replacing the handrail and spindles on my brothers staircase. He's had an idea that using steel cable running horizontally between the newls would look rather spiffy instead of regular, vertical wood spindles.

I've seen it a few times in poncey restaurants etc.. but don't know how it would work in a domestic setting, what with the 100mm rule for spindle spacing. Is it allowed under BR's? Has anyone done this?

I've seen a similar design on stairs using 100mm planking instead of cable. Fairly sure the space between the planking was more than 100mm.

The height between floor to underside of handrail is 850mm. handrail lenghts are 2.90M, 1.70M and 0.90M. Newl posts are 92mm x 92mm. I would probably be using 10mm cable.

Thanks.

WC

 

[Deluks]

It will probably look a bit naff, unless he lives in a poncey restaurant?

Will it fit in with the rest of the hallway, or will he he have to ''grand designs" the whole house to match it?

 

[noseall]

i agree with Deluks, you will tire of rather quickly as its naffness will cause it to date sooner than you think.

 

[wanabechippie]

I take your point re: naffness (technical design term? ). He is planning on renovating the whole house eventually - light, engineered flooring, funky lighting, chrome and glass thingumywhatisits... So it would probably work for him.

Naffability aside, how would it all work? Going by the BR's i've found, I can't have a 100mm sphere passing through any part of the balustrade. I'm guessing that means 8 strings of cable at 85mm-ish spacing?

Figure they would either have to have tones of tension on them to prevent sagging and thus allowing passage of the 100mm sphere, or spacers every so often to keep them together. Would like to avoid using the spacer spindles. Reckon having a staircase that you can play like a big-assed guitar might be rather cool!

I've found references to some BR issue of 'climability' re: balustrades. Couldn't find anything more specific as to how 'un-climable' it has to be. Anyone have any further details on this?

Thanks for you time/help!

WC

 

[noseall]

in order to tension a series of cables, over a distance of a few metres, would require some pretty sturdy newels.