The Interesting Facts about Stairs

Stairs are an essential part of most homes, particularly if you do not live in a bungalow but you’re probably thinking that there’s not much else that interesting about them, let’s take a look at some of the most interesting facts about stairs and see if that’s really the case.

The White House did not have stairs until 1948

It wasn’t until 1948 that stairs were installed in the White House, before this those that lived and worked within the White House were made to use ladders and ropes to manoeuvre the building  

The first stairs were just tree trunks.

Stairs were first invented around 6000 years ago to aid people with survival, mostly used on lofty valleys and Rocky Mountains to help people’s movements and travel, fashioned simply from placing progressively taller tree trunks in a row.

Unmarried more likely to fall down stairs

According to John Templer and his book, The Staircase, unmarried people fall down stairs more than those that are married and those that have previously been married fall down stairs even more than the rest. This is all according to the number of deaths, hospital treatments and missteps that took place on staircases.

Traditional staircases anti-clockwise but castles staircases travel clockwise

Most common spiral staircases will travel in an anti-clockwise direction but masonry staircases, particularly the ones you will find in castles will travel in a clockwise direction. This was to aid soldier’s travel when carrying their weapons with their right hands. As well as travelling clockwise the staircases would also have differing widths so that any intruders would not be familiar with this and conceivably slip.

Hitler was once tricked into using the stairs

During World War II when Hitler once visited the Eiffel Tower, he was informed that the power cables for the lift were out of order and made to take the stairs to the top of the tower. These power cables were intentionally disabled by the French to make the Nazi’s look foolish, the following day after Hitler had left, the stair lifts spokane wa were back to being fully operational.

In addition to Hitler, an elephant once climbed to the first floor of the tower in a circus stunt following a decline in popularity for the circus.

  • The most stairs climbed in a headstand is 36
  • The most stairs fallen down as part of a stunt is 134
  • The most stairs climbed while doing keep ups with a football is 4,698

You see, interesting stuff, and there’s more on this subject from https://www.mrstairs.com/. Be sure to check it out as this is one of the best Stair companies in the UK. It is certainly worth touching base if you need a new staircase, you are renovating, or if you are building a new house. And the same company also supplies commercial buildings and contracting/building firms.