Loft conversion - how wide are your stairs?!

[JimmyJazz]

We’re just finishing an L-shaped loft conversion in a Victorian terrace house and it looks great EXCEPT the stairs, we just trusted our architect to get them right and make them feel in keeping with the rest of the house (we didn’t have to encroach on any bedrooms, we just put them directly above the current stairs). Also, the stair-measuring guy made a “small” change that actually had a huge impact - he moved the foot of the stairs into the landing space by 30-40cm, when he said it would only be 10cm.

So, now the stairs are in, they look HUGE, and we’ve realised that through a quirk of the party wall they are actually the widest in the house - the stairs from ground floor to first floor and the few steps on the landing are 73cm wide, but the new stairs are 81.5cm wide and really dominate the landing and don’t let any light past. I’m wondering whether to try and change them while the build is still happening, or assume that I’ll stop noticing in a couple of months time.

Which is all preamble to asking: How wide are your stairs? How narrow can you go and they still feel spacious? I’m wondering about 65-67cm (distance between skirting and the inside edge of the spindle).

Thanks in advance!!

As it’s not a secondary staircase, in that it is the only staircase to access the loft a minimum width of 80 cm is normal. 65 is very narrow and I am not sure this would be permitted. Why don’t you ask the architect? He/she should know and explain to you why it’s 81 cm. it sounds standard width though.

Thanks @bubblesbuddy. He said that 80cm is normal, but as there’s no minimum width under building regs, it’s up to us if we want to go narrower. But it’s so hard to get a feel for the width of stairs we’d be comfortable without visiting tons of people’s houses with a tape measure!

This made me curious. Three bed semi with loft conversion here.

My main stairs are 80 cm wide, I thought the loft ones were exactly the same as the stairs are above the existing staircase but they measure 73cm.

They work really well, so well I never considered they were different sizes.

Thanks! Good to know that 73 and 80 are common, ours are just in reverse. I’m looking on the bright side - it really feels like the top of the house opens up into a big, light loft conversion

We're just finishing a loft conversion, staircase to loft is narrower than existing staircase but the treads are wider due to building regs which makes them feel strange but after a couple of months I'm not really noticing the difference in the tread width.

Thanks everyone. I just chatted with the staircase design guy and he was very clear on why our stairs are the best solution for the house - to do with headroom, step width, and child safety - so we’re happy. I think once it’s painted we also won’t notice difference in tread width.