Stair railing with horizontal balusters

Hello Alex,

The stair builders legally protect themselves here: If you want horizontal filler bars, you have to sign that you have been informed about the facts and that you still want it that way AND that the stair builder is now legally excluded from liability.

This statement is quite borderline.

The respective state building regulations determine whether horizontal bars are allowed or not. It is of little use to the stair builder to supposedly "exonerate" himself.

Rhineland greetings

I have now experienced this situation with three out of three stair builders. I am not obliged to have a staircase installed by a stair builder. I could also cobble one together myself. Or another "stupid" comparison example: I can also buy cars from the tuning dealer around the corner that are not allowed to be driven on the street. And yet the dealer is allowed to sell the cars. He simply points out that it is not a street-legal vehicle and notes this in the purchase contract. That's it.
I'm not saying that this is the very finest manner. But it seems, from my impression, to be common practice. There are also people who completely dispense with a railing. You also see that now and then in brochures of some design/architect houses. And they probably didn’t specially retouch the pictures. It was intentionally built that way.
In the end, I think everyone has to decide that for themselves. When my children have moved out someday, I won't really care about a state building regulation for stairs where children could possibly climb.
Regards
Alex

Even then, you would have to comply with the requirements of the state building regulations

Theoretically, yes. Practically, no one really cares about that.

I have now read the relevant paragraph and I think I know why the stair builders made this statement. There is no indication in the state building regulations that the infill bars must be vertical must. I therefore assume that the stair builders want to understandably protect themselves against possible claims for damages, in case something happens to your children or to visiting children.

That is exactly what I tried to express. Apparently, I didn’t succeed right away.

For a long time, there has been talk of standardizing the state building regulations on a broad state level on this point, i.e. to generally prohibit horizontal infill bars for safety reasons. I could also imagine that there are already rulings in BW against those stair builders who have not demonstrably fulfilled their duty to inform in this regard.

That may be.

That is certainly true. Only until your children move out, it can become like Russian roulette.

I had already mentioned the thing with the Plexiglas. Only I forgot to mention that this is also the solution for me instead of giving up on horizontal infill bars.

Somehow, as a citizen, I slowly feel deprived of my rights regarding safety. It’s somehow crazy that children only climb on horizontal infill bars. When they are big enough, they can also start sliding down the handrail. And the state building regulations say nothing about that, like: There have to be "böbbl" there to prevent sliding.

Be that as it may: I think it’s good that the stair builders point this out and offer this option. In my opinion, with that they have fulfilled their duty.