Spiral Stair Treads

I love the look of spiral and circular staircases. There are several reasons to have them, including that they can be very elegant, space saving, and more.

They take just a mere fraction of the space that a regular staircase takes. Even nonspiral or circular stairs will sometimes have a twist or turn in them, both for space consideration and decorative ones. They will have spiral stair treads, which are wider on one end than the other in order to make the curve or spiral.

Although I instantly think a beautiful residential home, they are also widely used in other environments, like ships, industrial, and commercial settings as well.

Sometimes a curved stairs are perfect solutions, for example wrapped around a tank or silo, or even a lighthouse. They can be freestanding or supported by one or more walls.

Often spiral staircases will feature an open air design, with no risers and often completing a full circle or even more. Sometimes we’ll are talking about what are sometimes termed circular staircases, which typically complete part of a turn. There can be an open air design or a more traditional closed design like most typical stair cases.

This means some of the stair treads will be wider on one side than the other, and we typically call these spiral stair treads. These may be premade to standard specifications, or custom stair treads made to your specifications in many cases. You can also buy premade spiral staircases that come in one piece and then merely need to be installed. These are often made of welded steel and cab be very attractive. It’s important in any case to consider local building codes and make sure the stairs comply.

If you are talking about structural stair treads, ones that are weight bearing, they can be made of almost any material, including, steel, stainless steel, aluminum, synthetic woods like Trex® and TimberTech®, steel or aluminum bar grate, steel or aluminum radial bar grate, brushed stainless and much more. There are plenty of choices, both standard and custom made.

There are also kits available to build spiral stair cases, including wooden and metal ones. Spiral Stairs of America (below) has several of these kits available, and although I have no experience with them, they look intriguing. The wood ones, as an example, take 4-8 hours to assemble according to their directions.

There are many places to get ideas, including looking online of course. Spiral Stairs of America has a nice and informative site with pictures of many of your options, and has spiral stair parts, treads, and even entire one piece solutions as well.

The stairs may already have a non slip surface, or you can add rubber, vinyl, carpet or other types of non slip stair treads to them. These may need to be cut to shape, which is fairly trivial. For example rubber stair treads can be easily cut with a pair of good scissors or a razor knife.