Congratulations: you have decided to buy a spacious house spread over more than one floor. You like the layout, the room arrangement suits your everyday routine, and you are considering a home inspection (bedek bayit) to find construction defects before closing the deal with the sellers.
A string of possible defects comes to mind: maybe there is hidden dampness, or what do those cracks in the living room wall actually mean? These are the "famous" construction defects, but would it occur to you to also have the stairs checked by an engineer?
Climbing the stairs when looking for construction defects
It is easy to judge a staircase by its color, or by the shape and carving of an impressive-looking railing, but what about how easy and safe it actually is to use?
The same stairs that connect the floors of the house, and that residents use every day, can become a dangerous hazard.
Climbing up and down daily, often quickly and without paying attention, can put residents at risk if the stairs were not designed to standard.
During the engineering inspection, the building engineer examines several parameters relating to the stairs and uses them to assess their safety.
One parameter is the step's riser and tread: the riser is its height, and the tread is the surface you step on. The ratio between them should make a normal climb or descent easy. Researchers who studied how we go up and down stairs found that the tread length, plus twice the riser height, should come out between 61 cm and 63 cm. That keeps the right balance: a step that neither forces too high a lift of the foot, nor leaves too little room to place it.
The average foot length ranges between 27 cm for men, 24 cm for women, and 21 cm for children.
For stairs to work well for everyone, the law sets a minimum tread of 25 cm. To keep the climb from being too tiring and the descent from being too dangerous, the riser must not exceed 17 cm.
Another parameter is uniformity between the steps. Has it ever happened that you were going up or down a staircase and, not paying attention, expected one more step that was not actually there? Lifting your foot for a step that does not exist does not usually threaten a fall, but it does make your sense of balance spin for a moment, because of the gap between the command your brain sent your muscles and the reality you met.
Keeping the stairs as uniform as possible prevents this gap: steps with different risers confuse the brain and make it harder to keep sending the muscles the right commands.
When you look at a house before buying it, you are not seeing it under everyday, continuous use, so it is easy to miss safety defects like these. These examples, and many others, show just how important it is to have a professional inspect, on your behalf, the house you intend to buy.
The engineers of Arad Bedek Bayit, led by building engineer Ron Arad, whom courts appoint as their own expert on construction defects. The company has been inspecting apartments and buildings since 2001. Engineer Ron Arad · More about the company