Can you review my handrail install

[Learninggal]

Good afternoon fellow members - I had a contractor come in and do a wrought iron hand rail and unfortunately I wasn't home. Can you review and see if it's an ok job? Shouldn't it be parallel? He said that if he lowers it down at the bottom of the steps to make it parallel, then it'll be too low for somebody to comfortably walk. I mean it feels comfortable to walk up and down but just looks odd. I wonder if this was the only way to do it given the pitch of my staircase

Thanks

 

[Learninggal]

Forgot an attachment

 

[TurnipTruck]

If I remember correctly, Code is 36” above the stair nose +/- 1”, with a certain diameter for a graspable rail.

 

[readhead]

Looks like he ran parallel to the nose line which is the right thing to do. If he had followed the wall it would have been stupid low at the bottom. For code the top of rail is to be 34"-38" above the nose line. Maximum circumference is 6 1/4".

 

[Bretny]

Yes code dictates hand rail height not a little wall.

 

[Learninggal]

By nose line are you referring to the front of every step?

 

[wssix99]

Without measuring and looking at the pictures, the steps don't even look uniform. My guess is that the new railing is correct and everything else is off from what it should be.

 

[dfiler2]

The nose is actually when there is a protrusion on the step, it doesn't look like your steps have a nose, but the handrail is generally from 30 to 37 inches from the front edge of the step. Not sure what I would have done there but I don't think I would have installed it that way without talking to the customer first. I wonder if a different color paint would make it less noticeable.

 

[The Cobbler]

is the rail parallel to the tips of the stair nosing? the rail should be the same distance from each step
hard to tell from the pictures

 

[Walkers]

It doesn’t meet any code regulations, but neither do the stairs.
34”-38” above the tread measured at the nose of the tread, extending one tread length beyond, 1 1/2” grasp ability, nothing protruding up from the rail with a turn down or volume, or return to wall.

 

[BarryWells]

Handrail is the least of your concerns

 

[ive]

Maybe a pic of the top of the railing would offer a solution.

 

[mike93lx]

Is your concern safety or aesthetics? Seems like the latter

 

[Bert_]

It's an interesting problem. The railing needs to be useable otherwise you wouldn't have put it in. But it needs to look decent also, in my opinion anyway.

It's strange that the wall doesn't match the steps. I kind of wonder if the steps were redone or poured over top of at some point to make them less steep. And it left a wall that doesn't match.

Unless you instructed him differently, the guy doing the railing did as good as can be expected.

What's you goal here? How far do you want to go?

 

[readhead]

The nose line is a line connecting the top tread nose and the bottom tread nose and extending to the floor or final grade. Weather or not there is an overhang on the treads has no bearing on the line. That line establishes the layout of guardrails and grab rails.
There are code requirements but many jurisdictions may modify the requirements. In commercial work the first nose is actually where the nose line meets the floor and the grab rail is supposed to extend one foot past the first nose. I have seen quite a few variations on that rule.
I think your guy did the best he could in a bad situation. I would have run the top rail over the bottom post but that is the way he did it and it is not right or wrong.
A coat of white paint would lessen the impact and it won’t take long to get used to it.
The alternative is to start down the rabbit hole of rebuilding the wall to match the rail.
I would buy some white paint and enjoy the security of the new rail.