Why Going it Alone on a Staircase Project can be a Bad Idea

For contractors looking to carry out a staircase project by themselves, as part of a build, we would urge you to think again and hire a staircase specialist. The phrase, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’, is never truer than with bespoke staircases. Here are some persuasive reasons to not go it alone on your stairs project.

It’s not uncommon for builders, architects and contractors to absorb a stair into a build as just another component part of the overall project. Anecdotally we have heard of some of the nightmare scenarios that ensue because of this. In this respect, a curious potential customer recently asked us, ‘So, what would you do differently? And ‘Why is it better to hire you than do it ourselves?’ Here are some reasons.

Knowledge of stairs

Firstly, as a staircase specialist, The Alpine Group has a throughput capacity of being able to produce a minimum of five feature staircases a week, which means over the course of time, there are not many situations, if any, that we don’t come across regularly. That ‘laser’ focus on stairs garners a knowledge of solutions for every presented challenge.

Consider that we have 50 strong years of trading lineage behind us and we have CE Execution Class 3 production accreditation and Gold level of Construction Line. This means we have invaluable knowledge of how to do things the right way for the best results.

More general fabricators may scratch their heads with some of the problems that can and do occur, but we see all the challenges day-in and day-out with a total understanding of what we can do. We can demonstrate and show you how we can tackle an issue, and what the end result will look like, which is really valuable to know.

Intuitive understanding of challenges

Importantly, as stairs specialists, we can spot the pitfalls before they happen.

Our team can study a staircase concept and instantly know what parts are going to work and what parts are not going to work, drawing from years of experience.

Our team can study a staircase concept and instantly know what parts are going to work and what parts are not going to work, drawing from years of experience. They can tell which bits are expensive to build and present different ways of building them to keep the costs down and quality up. We see both potential problems and exciting possibilities almost instantly as second nature and we can prove our conclusions with demonstrative examples.

Coordination and project management

Something that our clients always appreciate is that there is one point of contact, not ten or more, representing each trade working on the stairs. In many staircase projects, we coordinate all kinds of tradespeople, such as structural engineers, CAD specialists, and specialists in high tolerance materials. We know our fabricators know how to put these stairs together to ensure they are all within tolerance and they are used to working with staircases as the norm. We work with trusted experts in timber, glass, marble, liquid metal paint and many, many more niche trades. As a contractor, it will be a headache to split down a staircase into several jobs by different tradesmen, when there is the rest of the building to organise in parallel.

Reliable work patterns

Our teams are reliable. Anyone in the building trade will know this is not a small benefit but a crucial one. The reason is that we work with people we know will deliver and can work together. Tradespeople will often prioritise the businesses that give them regular work over one-off jobs if it comes to a choice, as an independent tradesman will not want to lose that dependable income stream. That’s why, sometimes, when a contractor hires a tradesperson who is randomly chosen, they may be let down as the hire will not honour a time or date, simply because they have been asked to work for their main, regular client at a short notice. We do not suffer from this issue.

We have reliable teams we have continuously worked with that graft to deadlines effectively and are onsite when they need to be. Because of this we also negate the age-old problem of ‘trade-blame’ that occurs when there are gaps in completion and coordination of tasks, because of poor management or not managing an overlap of trades. When you try to manage it all yourself, you have a very high risk of this ‘trade blame’, where people leave gaps in work and apportion blame and accountability to others.

It’s worth knowing, that for peace of mind, we carry a high level of professional indemnity, insurance and product liability so at The Alpine Group, ‘the buck stops here’, and accountability is with us always, which is how it should be. We have the complete package which means you can trust us with your needs.

A staircase, especially a bespoke staircase, is not a simple undertaking, so rely on The Alpine Group’s expertise to make sure it’s one less problem to worry about in a building project. Contact us if you need to ensure your staircase is on brief, on budget and on time.