# Stock Stair Storage?



## James Diemer (Aug 15, 2014)

Overhauling the storage of a theatre and I can't seem to come up with an efficient way to store our stock of stair units (just the carriages with the treads attached, no legging). What's your preferred method for storing these?


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 15, 2014)

Commenting mostly to follow this thread, but we currently have about 4-5 stock stairs that we store in our pit. Most of the time we just flip one on top of the other and lock them in like Tetris pieces. I've got two curved units from an "Anything Goes" build that I'm hanging on to that don't store well and can't do that since they turn opposite each other and won't nest. These are all free-standing and only about 3-4' tall.

We do have two longer stringers with treads (about 7' rise in total) that are used either for escape or part of the set every so often. Those get stripped down and nest on top of each other and are currently sitting on top of a bridge from "The Music Man" since they fit inside it and the piece has wheels so we can move it since the steps weigh a ton. That's currently in my office.


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## Chris15 (Aug 15, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> Commenting mostly to follow this thread



Just for future reference, there's a button at the top of the thread marked "Watch Thread" that will allow you to do that without posting


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## Amiers (Aug 15, 2014)

Tetris and space are your friends.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 15, 2014)

Chris15 said:


> Just for future reference, there's a button at the top of the thread marked "Watch Thread" that will allow you to do that without posting



Well, yeah, but I didn't want to just say, "I have this problem too, here's my awful way of fixing it [HASHTAG]#pleasedontjudgeme[/HASHTAG]"


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## James Diemer (Aug 15, 2014)

Amiers said:


> Tetris and space are your friends.


That's what we have going on at the moment. There's far too many clever people on here for no one to have tried some interesting methods (I hope).


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## theatricalmatt (Aug 15, 2014)

I usually knock the whole staircase down to separate parts (stringer and treads, plus any cross-support needed) because it stores much, much smaller that way. Occasionally it's worthwhile keeping a few smaller stair units intact; two- or three-step units that might serve on a day-today basis for staging events and one-offs. I know a few places that store whole stairs, and it's a quick way to fill a room.


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## gafftapegreenia (Aug 15, 2014)

Anything above a 4 step unit just ends up being space consumer. Designers seemingly hate using stock set pieces and love to change platform heights from show to show by mere inches. The hardest part is cutting the stringers, so disassembling and saving the parts makes more sense than saving built units. But as always, YMMV


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## James Diemer (Aug 15, 2014)

theatricalmatt said:


> I usually knock the whole staircase down to separate parts (stringer and treads, plus any cross-support needed) because it stores much, much smaller that way.


The more I think about it, the more it seems that this is the best idea (for our space). Even if the next show needs that 8 foot stair unit, it won't need the 6 foot or the 10 foot - so why keep them all together. Assembling the stair isn't nearly as time consuming as building one or even just rearranging all the ones we have. Also, if all the stock has the same run (designers aside) then we can pull from a single tread stock and just store the stringers... I will continue to think on this...


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## Timothy A. Samuelson (Aug 15, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> Commenting mostly to follow this thread, but we currently have about 4-5 stock stairs that we store in our pit. Most of the time we just flip one on top of the other and lock them in like Tetris pieces. I've got two curved units from an "Anything Goes" build that I'm hanging on to that don't store well and can't do that since they turn opposite each other and won't nest. These are all free-standing and only about 3-4' tall.
> 
> We do have two longer stringers with treads (about 7' rise in total) that are used either for escape or part of the set every so often. Those get stripped down and nest on top of each other and are currently sitting on top of a bridge from "The Music Man" since they fit inside it and the piece has wheels so we can move it since the steps weigh a ton. That's currently in my office.


 
We do the same, nest the more stock ones and tear down the rest. On a side note...dude, how big is your office?!


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 16, 2014)

It's weird. It's probably a room that's 7' x 50', so more of a hallway than an office. It's behind the lobby, and originally they wanted to build that room into a concessions stand, but at the last minute they nixed it. THere's 5 other theatres in our district with the same basic blueprint, 2 identical and 3 updated. The updated ones have bigger lobbies and tiny offices instead. About 90% of my office is storage though, I just occupy a desk in the middle of it all. Beats the cube farm though!


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