On this page, you'll find two sections to guide you:

• STAIRCASE TERMINOLOGY – Key terms in the language of staircase design.
• STAIRCASE CONFIGURATIONS – Overview of staircase options.

STAIRCASE TERMINOLOGY

Below, you'll find some staircase terminology to get you feeling more comfortable with the wording found throughout this website and spoken during our conversations

BACK WALL STRINGER CONNECTIONS

These are structural connections of a landing frame to your wall. The actual connection type depends on the structure of your wall and your connection requirements. They can be hidden within the wall or visible on top of the wall finish. Staircases that have a built-in landing, such as switchback and 90 degree staircases, need something that is structurally strong enough to support that part of the stair.

BASE SHOE

This component is the steel plate at the base of the stair that sits on or just below the finished floor. If it sits below the finished floor, we call it an inset base shoe. The standard for this product line is on the floor.

FINISHED FLOOR

The finished surface of a building that is intended for walking on. This term can also denote the level of the building. As an example: "I'm on the second floor."

FLIGHT

The term used to explain the portion of a staircase that allows you to travel up or down without a change in direction to another floor or a landing.

FLOOR JOIST

The large structural cross-members that support your floors.

HEADER / TOP CONNECTION POINTS

The structural points needed for anchoring the top of the stair in place. This is the structural member that the top stringer mount gets bolted to.

LANDING

A platform of a specific size that allows for a change in staircase direction at some point in the climb. Landings can be designed and fabricated as part of the staircase, which is part of our Switchback and 90 Degree models, or they can be built using the standard building materials and finished as part of the wall finishes in your building.

LANDING FRAME

The steel portion of the staircase spine that supports the landing in our Switchback and 90 Degree models.

NOSING

The protruding portion of a tread that overhangs onto the space of the tread below it. It helps make the staircase safer by overlapping the treads. This overlap is typically 1 inch.

RISER

This is the portion of the stringer that supports the treadplate and are welded to the spine.

RISES

The easiest way to describe a rise is every time your foot leaves the ground to climb up a step. In a 14 tread/step staircase, there are 15 rises.

SPINE

The structural support that holds the the entire stair together. It's the steel backbone of the staircase that runs diagonally up the back of the stair.

STAIRCASE

The whole assembly that lets you get from one floor to another.

STAIRWELL

This is the location of where your stair will go.

STEP RISE / INDIVIDUAL RISE

Think of this as the height that your foot needs to travel to make contact with the top of the next tread.

STEP RUN / INDIVIDUAL RUN

This is the space between the edges of two treads. It is measured from the nosing of one tread to the nosing of the next tread.

STRINGER

The steel portion of the staircase comprised of risers, treadplates, a spine, a base shoe and a top stringer mount. Also referred to as the stair frame at times.

SUBFLOOR

The surface just below the finished floor. Often times, when a staircase is being planned, the building might only have a subfloor since it is not at the finishing stages yet and the floor hasn't been laid.

TOP NOSING / FLOOR TRIM

The piece of wood or other material that is used to finish the edge of the floor at the stair opening.

TOP RISER BOARD / FASCIA BOARD

The finish piece that hides all the stringer mounting assembly.

TOP STRINGER MOUNT

The portion of the steel staircase that gets bolted to the upper floor joists and blocking. This portion of the stair gets hidden behind the finish work.

TOTAL RISE

The measurement as taken from the finished floor of one level to the finished floor of the next level. The term "finished floor" is very important here. A steel staircase is built to fit exactly within the finished space of your stairwell.

TOTAL RUN

This is essentially the total horizontal space that your staircase needs. For a straight run staircase, this means taking a measurement from the nosing of the first step to the nosing of the top floor.

TREAD / STEP

The block of wood, slab of stone, poured concrete slab, or other material that serves as the walking surface up the staircase. The treads we offer have a thickness of 2.5 inches.

TREAD DEPTH

This is the measurement of how deep the actual piece of wood or stone or concrete is. Not to be confused with Individual Run.

TREAD THICKNESS

Simply put, it is the thickness of the wooden, concrete, or stone tread that you choose. We offer 2.5 inch wood treads as standard for this product line.

TREAD WIDTH

This is the measurement of how wide your tread is. Typical widths range from 36-42 inches.

TREADPLATE

A piece of steel welded to the riser part of the stringer that supports and secures the treads.

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STAIR CONFIGURATIONS

Here are the types of staircase configurations we have on offer. There are other configurations out there, but in order to keep things simple and keep costs down, we've chosen to offer only 3 types of stair layouts. These configurations lend themselves well to most spaces and you can always contact us if you need to discuss a custom tweak to the configuration in order to finish your design.