There is a separate Stairs Extension that contains tools for drawing stairs, landings, and railings of different sorts. Downloading and installing this Extension will add two separate component tabs to CET: Commercial Stairs with components suitable for office and home environments, and Industrial Stairs with stairs for industry and storage sectors.
Items from the Commercial Stairs tab Items from the Industrial Stairs tab
How to Insert Stairs
To simply place the stairs, a single click upon inserting the Stairs would place the default dimensions of the Stairs.
While inserting the stairs, you can also hold left-click and:
- drag up/down the stairs would alter the total run for the top/bottom side of the stairs.
- rotate (move the mouse to the side of the stairs) would insert the default Stairs dimensions but with the ability to rotate.
The 'blue riser' at the top of the Stairs indicates where the Landings can be placed. Besides that, it can also act as a guideline when connecting it to another level/floor.
Multiple stairs can be attached to the same side of a landing with 2 clicks. The 1st is to snap the stairs to the landing while the 2nd click is to confirm placement after specifying the direction of the stairs in the Quick Property box.
Railings are automatically added to Industrial Stairs that follow building codes while 'Custom' stairs are placed without railings.
Properties
You can alter the dimensions in the Quick Property box during and after inserting the Stairs. You will get more options after inserting the Stair.
Insert Mode: Custom or Automatic (Default). This follows the Building Code Standards option, the default is Automatic which follows the option you chose in the dropdown menu over at the Stairs components tab.
Total Rise, Total Run: The measurement of the total height and depth of each step respectively as shown in the image below.
Run Width: The width of each step.
Number of Steps: Total number of steps for the selected Stairs.
Code Standard: Greyed out. Follows the Code chosen during insert.
Tread Height & Depth: The dimension of each step's height and depth. Greyed out. Follows the Total Rise & Run.
Stairs Style: Open Base / Closed Base / Open Raiser / Flushed. Refer to the following images.
Show Stringer: Adds the housing on either side of the Stairs.
Show Upward Arrow: Shows the Stairs direction in the 2D drawing view.
Show Upward Text: Shows the 'Up' text in the 2D drawing view.
Building Code Standards
Looking at each of the Stairs types, you have been given the option to choose the Building Code Standards right off the bat.
For Commercial Stairs, you can either choose an IBC 2015 code or customize your stairs.
However, for Industrial Stairs, additional Building Code Standards are given, including OSHA and ISO 14122.
Besides that, you also have the ability to auto-insert railings for Industrial Stairs.
Industrial Stairs
Besides that, Industrial Stairs also has more symbols to work with, such as Ladders, more Landings & Supports, and Materials selection for the steps.
Comments
8 comments
Directions on how to attach the stairs would be helpful. Where does the translucent blue riser position? How would you calculate the rise. It would be nice if you could attached and positioned the stairs at the bottom and then drag up like an accordion and then snap to the next level.
Hi Amy, sorry for the delay, we do agree that this article was indeed lacking of directions.
Thus, we have now updated this article to include answering your questions.
Do take a look back if you feel if anything else is missing.
It would be nice to assign stairs to a level or change their starting elevation. Am I missing the location of this feature?
Hi,
You may assign the stairs to the desired level through the Categorization tool, and it will be registered to the checked level.
More info on that here: Categorization Dialog: Levels Tab – Configura Help Center
Looking for a way to add materials to the materials / staircase list. We often use plywood.
Hi,
You can paint a Material to the stairs via our Material Explorer :)
Refer to our article here: About the Material Explorer – Configura Help Center
Thanks for the reply. The term "Staircase" in the panel is a bit misleading. What it is actually doing is changing the material of the "top plate" to stairs and platforms. Painting a stair or platform changes the material for the entire object. I don't want this. The "Staircase" tool paints only the top plate. What I want to know is how to add additional materials to the default list. See attached.Thanks.
Hi,
You have a good point. I will escalate this to our Core team for resolution.
To paint a Material to the Stairs, before applying, you can cycle through the green QuickProperties box via the tab shortcut key to choose the target location.
Regarding the Material Select dialogue, the ones listed are CET Presets. You will have to add your own materials by going to the Customer's Own Material tab.

Refer to this article here about COM: Symbol Replace – Configura Help Center
Thanks!
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