Stair Rail – Quick Disconnect System
yelowdog
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
Looking for a source or a solution. I manage rental properties where the railings are removed each time people move. Stripped screws and worn out screw holes is not the way to go in the future. It would be great to have some kind of quick disconnect hardware or other solution to this problem. Does anyone out there have a hardware source they could recommend or any other solution to this problem?
Thanks
Replies
Greetings yelowdog, is it a lab that is sitting at your feet as you're reading this? :o)
As a first time poster Welcome to Breaktime.
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again which will increase it's viewing.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Thanks Rez
Doug
If you are going to be installing new rails:
Last year I did a rail setup on the side of a porch deck which held the only door to the old house with 6steps going up to the deck in the front and the back of the house.
To compound things the upstairs interior stairway was located directly to one side of that door.(now I'm wondering if it might even have been a 32" door)
A symmetrically identical house faced that house across the shared driveway and the customer in addition to the steps rail wanted a removable rail across the what...10 or 12 ft long deck which was about four ft wide to make it easier to move items in and out.
It was a covered porch and what I did was screw pressure treated 2x4s together and rip-trimmed just enough to allow some swelling of the lumber.
The hollow white 4x4 PVC post component as found at the Lowes bigbox was fitted over them after they were firmly secured to the deck framing at the length of the manufactured rail component, 8 ft, apart.
Then I was able to customize the same manufactured connectors designated for their railing system to make that straight railing section be able to be lifted straight up and removed when needed but still provide the stability when placed down on the connectors in it's normal stationary position.
If you are using pre-existing metal rails JTCI's idea should function with minimal labor involved in the production or else it sounds more like custom fitting hardware to make it removable.
Cheers
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Thanks Rez and JTC1 I appreciate you guys taking the time to work on my problem.
My first choice still would be to find a manufacture/supplier that sells specialized quick disconnect hardware for stair rail systems. I've tried googling but haven't found a way to narrow the search enough to make it worth while tracking down the hits.
Thanks again,
Doug
Are we talking interior stairway or outdoor railings?
are you 'simple but elegeant'?
Interior railing Rez.
Doug
Yellowdog,
Why don't you replace the existing wood screws with threaded inserts and machine screws.
I use them for various applications - available in different diameters and lengths up to about 1/4" machine screws at least. Look like a small barrel with no top or bottom - threaded with a rather coarse wood screw thread on the outside and has a machine screw thread on the inside. You bore a rather large "pilot hole" (1/4" to 1/2" depending on machine screw size), drive the insert with an Allen wrench, then thread in your machine screw to hold the railing. In softwood, I would be inclined to uses a product such as Loctite's "Tight'n for Screws" on the outside of the threaded inserts to avoid loosening over time.
Don't know a manufacturer's name, my local hardware store and the big boxes both carry them in the specialty hardware section. Around here, I can get them in steel or brass.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Somewhere, and I can't remember where, I saw a railing where the handrail had slotted plates on each end that slid over pins, so that one only needed to anchor the railing to the floor -- gravity did most of the work.
I had good luck using taper connectors.
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=2&p=40351&cat=3,43715,43716&ap=1
Maybe something along the lines of a bedrail fastener: http://www.rockler.com/CategoryView.cfm?Cat_ID=141
Instead of railings, build walls at the required handrail height.
Sheet the walls with plywood first then sheetrock over that. This makes it almost impossible to put a hole in the sheetrock.
Cap the tops of the walls with 1x and trim the seam between the 1x and the wall.