Handrail Safety

I’m pretty sure that the diagram your looking for isn’t coverd in the regs as regards stairs, The regs covers heights, slopes and spacings. It is pretty much out of your hands as the “distance required to turn down” is going to be establised by the manufacturer if it is a pre-fab rail.
Is it a timber onsite constructed stairs you are thinking of?

Guidance in this document is of use here maybe.

Buildings for Everyone 2002 is a guide to making buildings and the environment accessible and usable by everyone. It costs €45 (€22.50 for people with disabilities or organisations of people with disabilities) and is available from:

The National Disability Authority (NDA),
25 Clyde Road,
Dublin 4.

Tel: (01) 608 0400
Website: http://www.nda.ie

Might be available in library or good bookshops also.

Handrails shold extend 300mm beyond end of stair or ramp and should return to the wall horizontally or turn downwards. Some guides recommend that it extends all the way to the floor but I generally use 150mm as a guide.

Hope that helps.
JJ

I didn’t think there was a rule on that but I bet there is further information in
one or other of the BS (or Irish equivalent) mentioned in the regulations, or
would be Approved Documents (UK).
Beware of implementing disabled standards if your stair is not.

@sw101 wrote:

Can anyone help me track down the regs on how to terminate a handrail at the top and bottom of a ramp or stairs. Specifically, i’m trying to find a diagram (i know i’ve seen it before) of the distance required to turn down the end of the rail to avoid catching a sleeve, or how to turn it perpendicularly into a wall to avoid the same issue.

Tried Part K and Part M, the metric handbook and Building Regulations Explained with no success.

Thanks.

you must have missed Part M, page 7, Diagram 4

Remember that they’re only guidelines – you have no real obligation to conform to the minutiae. Turning the handrail into the wall, or down the wall, or all the way to the floor is the kind of thing you’d expect to see in the back stair of a secondary school built c. 1972.