Replacing a staircase sounds like a contained job and almost never is. The stairs come out, and with them go the spindles, the newel posts, the understairs cupboard, a run of skirting, a length of handrail and usually a good deal of the hallway plaster. Add the flooring on both landings and the job spreads across three levels of the house in a day. We supply Litherland skip hire for this kind of internal work regularly, and skip hire in Litherland for a staircase job needs to be on site the morning the strip out starts rather than the day after.
What a staircase strip out actually produces
Timber, and a lot more of it than the stairs themselves. A traditional straight flight from a Litherland terrace or semi gives up treads, risers, strings, a newel post at each end and anywhere between fifteen and thirty spindles. If the balustrade is being replaced rather than reused, the handrail and base rail come too. Underneath, the understairs cupboard usually turns out to be a construction of thin ply, batten and hardboard nailed together decades ago, and it comes apart into a surprising pile.
Then the hallway itself. Removing a staircase almost always damages the plaster where the strings meet the wall, and on older properties that plaster is lath and horsehair rather than modern board. Lath plaster is heavy, dusty and voluminous, and it is the material that fills the skip fastest. Skirting comes off to allow the new flight to sit correctly, and the hall floor generally comes up as well, because the old covering rarely survives the work and the new stairs need a clean level to land on.
Finally there is the packaging. A new flight arrives wrapped, palletised and protected, and that wrapping alone takes up real space in the skip if it is not broken down.
Sizing and timing for a short internal job
The volume here is moderate and the weight is uneven. Timber is bulky and light. Lath plaster is dense and heavy. Old floor tile, if the hallway has any, is heavier again. That mix means a 4 tonne midi skip hire covers most single staircase replacements comfortably, provided the plaster goes in flat on the floor of the skip rather than being tipped in on top of the timber at the end.
Where the staircase replacement is part of a wider hallway remodel, with a wall opened up, a doorway moved or the floor dug out and relaid, an 8 tonne builders skip hire is the safer booking. Comparing capacities across our skip sizes before the joiner starts is worth ten minutes, because the difference between the two sizes is far less than the cost of a second collection.
Timing is the part people underestimate. A staircase strip out is fast. A competent joiner will have the old flight out and the hallway cleared before lunch, and if the skip is not there the whole lot ends up in the front garden or the living room. Book the skip for the morning of day one and keep it to the end of day three, which covers the making good.
Separating the plasterboard and keeping the load clean
Plasterboard is the item that causes most confusion on internal jobs. It cannot be landfilled mixed with general waste, because gypsum in a mixed landfill produces hydrogen sulphide. That means it has to be separated, and separating it on site is far easier than having it picked out afterwards. Our guide to plasterboard disposal and building waste separation covers how we handle it and what a clean load looks like.
Old lath and lime plaster is a different material and is treated as inert rubble rather than plasterboard, so if the hallway is old enough, the plaster coming off is unlikely to be a gypsum board problem at all. Knowing which of the two you have before you start decides whether you need one skip or a skip and a separate bag. Everything that reaches us goes through our own recycling centre, where timber, plasterboard, metal and rubble are pulled apart and routed to the right outlet.
Getting a skip onto a Litherland street
Litherland has a lot of terraced and short frontage housing, and driveways are not universal. Where there is off street parking, a midi skip fits and no permit is needed. Where the property fronts directly onto the pavement, the skip goes on the carriageway and Sefton Council issues the permit. The fee is £36 per month and we make the application as part of the booking, which is why we ask about placement when you call rather than when we arrive.
The practical detail on a terraced street is the carry. Every piece of that staircase has to come out through the front door and along the pavement to the skip, and a skip parked four houses down turns a two hour clear out into a half day. We will always take the closest legal position we can, and if the bay directly outside is occupied it is worth a word with the neighbours the day before rather than on the morning.
Booking skip hire in Litherland for internal work
A staircase job is one of the more disruptive things you can do to a house, because it takes out the route between the two floors for the best part of a day. Everything that can be planned in advance should be, and the skip is the easiest part of that to get right. We are a family run and fully licensed waste carrier working from our own site, so if the job runs a day longer than planned, extending the hire is a phone call rather than a new booking.
We cover the same work across Bootle skip hire and Waterloo skip hire, where the housing stock and the access conditions are much the same. If you want more on how a renovation sequence and its waste line up, our guide to skip hire for home renovations and improvements sets out the pattern.
To get a skip on the street for the morning the stairs come out, ring us on 0151 909 6399 or contact our team with the address and the start date, and we will handle the permit if you need one.
