Building, designing and verifying National Construction Code (NCC) compliance of stairways, is important for safe movement to and within a building.

Stairways are a common building feature with multiple NCC requirements. To help construction practitioners, Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) has released a new one-hour continuing professional development (CPD) course on stairways in buildings.

The course looks at both residential and commercial buildings including:

• stairway features such as barriers, handrails, slip resistance and fire isolated stairways
• steps to verify on-site compliance, including allowable construction tolerances
• key terminology and clarifying common misconceptions.

It also walks through a scenario showing how requirements can vary based on the nature, volume and frequency of likely usage.

The ups and downs of stairway compliance

The purpose of this course is to help you meet the minimum NCC safety requirements for stairways. But it’s important to take a step back and recognise why compliance is important in the first place.

Stairway safety is crucial to minimise the risks from slips, trips and falls – these types of accidents can be a large and costly public health problem.

Housing density in Australia is increasing too. This is resulting in more multi-storey houses, townhouses and apartment buildings. With more multi-storey buildings with stairways, the risk of slips, trips and falls increases, as well as a greater potential for falls from heights.

If you are working in residential or commercial construction, chances are you or your staff are building a stairway in at least one of your projects.

Why complete this NCC CPD course

CPD is a great way for you to go up in your career (pardon the pun).

However, after long days in the office or on the job site, it can be difficult finding the time.

NCC CPD courses provide a flexible learning experience with a mixture of written, video and interactive material. We explore scenarios you may face in your day-to-day work so you can actually apply what you learn from the course.

The courses are also mobile-friendly – so checking your knowledge on the job is only a few clicks away. Although this course takes roughly one hour to complete, you have the flexibility to stop and start it and complete it at a pace that suits you. Follow this link to register.