Richard Burbidge Fusion Staircase System

Certainly when you look at the component parts there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it is a major step forward. Gone are the critical cuts requiring joinery skills. Fusion is to carpentry, what push fit fittings are to plumbing, which bodes well for me because I was trained as a plumber and not a carpenter. But my experience in plumbing has taught me that some people can still make a real mess out of a job even with convenience fittings. This is because the real work in any construction project is, or should be, done long before you grab a saw and a hammer. In other words the battle is won or lost in the planning stage.

SO MUCH FOR THEORY

I looked at the Fusion catalogue, checked the dimensions of the staircase and ordered the parts. The only problem was that the house for my product test was a good few hundred miles from my home so I hadn't seen it before I arrived. All I was working on was a sketch and a couple of low quality digital images.

REALITY CHECK

What was not apparent from the pictures was the just how tight things got on the top landing, even without the pine wash stand there was barely room to swing a cat. To use the Fusion system of components you need enough space on the top landing to make a return on the top newel post with the two ninety degree elbows. There just wasn't the space so I knew it would be a bit of a challenge to get the Fusion system to work for me in a situation where things were far from ideal. If I had been replacing existing handrails and spindles with Fusion there wouldn't have been any difficulty but the ranch style rails had some peculiarities. They were fitted on the sides of the newels and the upstairs floor had been trimmed back flush rather than being allowed to over-sail the joist. In order to get the spindles to sit in the middle of the new hand rail and newel I had to plant a piece on the side of the joist and then lay a base rail down. I also had to think about the stair hand rail because it it couldn't just come up to the top newel post. In the end I halved the thickness of the rail at the top to create a flat section so I could screw it to the edge of the floor joist.