Looking to install inside handrail

Steel or wrought iron vertical post mounted to the floor butted up against the wall?????

When healing from a broken ankle I pulled the wooden handle out of the wall, so DH took the handle and installed it on the left side on the corner. It is quite solid now. Coming down the stairs I was able to use it, and reach over to the screen door handle we put on fairly high and come down the stairs, and get up into the walker! Fun fun!!

When we bought our 5er in 2009, we had the dealer install a hand rail on the outside wall(right side going up the stairs). It's sturdy and my wife uses it all the time. I'm thinking it was attached to outside wall studs. It's placed in the middle of the stairs. It's wood and actually is the same as the inside rail at the door. If you're going to install it yourself, get a stud finder and hunt for them. The studs in our 5er are metal.

I was able to use a door hinge side of a wall to connect a handle. The hinge area had additional structural members within the wall to securely attach the handle.

I think it depends on your particular configuration.

I installed an RV grab handle on the left side. That side had a curved wall and the wall had the small pantry behind it.

Cut a couple of access (square) holes in the pantry wall, glued in the reinforcements for the handle, screwed on the handle from the outside, and then put a couple of luan patches on the interior pantry wall.

I was luckily able to mount the upper end of a handrail by drilling through the interior wall of the bathroom using one of the screw holes of the toilet paper holder to attach both pieces of hardware securely. The lower end I secured into a plastic anchor...... so far so good!

Rockler.com for woodworking parts. A backer would be one way to distribute the force of a handrail. In addition you might consider floor mounted brackets. Or both.

soren wrote:
You might have to install an exposed backer board. This involves making a nicely finished board that span the entire area where the hand rail will be mounted. I have done then in 3/4" Oak with nicely routered edges and a nice stain and urethane finish. This board is screwed to anything and everything that's structural in the wall. It then becomes the mounting surface for the hand rail brackets. You may have seen something similar in public bathrooms, as it's a common technique for securely mounting handicap grab rails to an existing wall, where studs do not end up in places that would be suitable for mounting the bar, and there is no blocking installed inside the wall, between studs.

In another case, I built a custom handicap entrance rail for our motorhome. It is a complicated affair made of 1/2" black steel gas pipe, bent with a conduit bender. The railing is attached to the floor with pipe "floor flanges" and the upper end is welded to a piece of 1/8" thick steel flat stock that spans from a window flange to a door flange, where it is securely screwed tight.

Makes sense...thanks.

Johno02 wrote:
Unless there was one built in, there is probably nothing in an outside wall to attach to. Mostly the walls are some type of laminated foam with a thin hardboard sheet on both sides. Very little or no framing at all. Suggest attaching a nice well-finished hardwood board to the wall with good adhesive and a few short mollies, then attaching handrail to that.

Good info...thanks.

You might have to install an exposed backer board. This involves making a nicely finished board that span the entire area where the hand rail will be mounted. I have done then in 3/4" Oak with nicely routered edges and a nice stain and urethane finish. This board is screwed to anything and everything that's structural in the wall. It then becomes the mounting surface for the hand rail brackets. You may have seen something similar in public bathrooms, as it's a common technique for securely mounting handicap grab rails to an existing wall, where studs do not end up in places that would be suitable for mounting the bar, and there is no blocking installed inside the wall, between studs.

In another case, I built a custom handicap entrance rail for our motorhome. It is a complicated affair made of 1/2" black steel gas pipe, bent with a conduit bender. The railing is attached to the floor with pipe "floor flanges" and the upper end is welded to a piece of 1/8" thick steel flat stock that spans from a window flange to a door flange, where it is securely screwed tight.