Stair handrail advice

benson1980

Hi, in the process of doing up our house at the moment and next job is installing a handrail for the stairs- initially I had an idea of where it was going to go but its just occurred to me that this might be an issue due to the plasterboard wall. Here's a couple of pics of the staircase in question:





Initially I was going to install it on the left hand side as you go up the stairs. However, from the top of the stairs, the wall above this on the left hand side is plasterboard, so one of the fixings would have to be secured on that. This is a partition wall so nothing secure behind it. Is this a definite no no?

The other option is obviously the other side, but dont want to ruin the aesthetics of the newly installed banister rail on the landing by over running the hand rail in front of it, so guess the other option is to start the handrail just below the base of the banister. This wall is pretty much solid so securing shouldn't be an issue. Anyone got any tips/ideas? Handrail is just a solid pine circular handrail, in the second pic. The old handrail was secured to the post at the top of the stairs, and then there was a length of wood nailed to the wall, to secure the handrail to as obviously the post at the top of the stairs is further out than the wall. This was really ugly though, hence why changing it. Cheers.

wallbash

This is a partition wall so nothing secure behind it. Is this a definite no no?

Apart from the timber supporting the Plaster board! use that.

benson1980

good point. Next question- is thee an easy way to establish where the timber is behind the plasterboard?

Chunks

You can buy a stud finder but some say they don't work. If you have some small rare earth magnets (source off ebay) you can rub them gently over the wall until you find a screw head (they will stick and since the screws will be driven into wood, bingo). Go north and south of that magnet to find the next screw. You will then likely have found the stud (confirm with a small pilot hole).

benson1980

Thanks Chunks and Wallbash, did as you said, used a rare earth magnet to find the stud and secured the last handrail bracket to it. All installed and looking good.