DIY Galvanized Pipe Handrail for our Basement Stairwell

How I built a galvanized pipe handrail for our basement stairwell. Its been a long time coming but here we finally are, the last stop to finally completing this stairwell down to our basement. I made most of the hardware in the basement out of black galvanized pipe so it was a no-brainer for me to do the same with the handrail. Also, galvanized pipe is really sturdy stuff so I knew it would be a good material to use for safety. It is definitely not the first time its been used like this!

First thing is first I wish I had just used all galvanized pipe and not bothered getting the “black” galvanized pipe. They cover it in a thick oil to keep it from rusting so you wind up filthy if you have to handle it at all.

I ended up not even being able to get all of my fittings in black pipe anyway so I might as well have just used regular galvanized and then painted it later if it bothered me.

But I had what I had so I wiped down my pipes and all of my fittings with mineral spirits so I could actually handle them.

Galvanized Pipe Handrail

Galvanized Pipe Handrail

I did my best measuring this out but I still bought lots of extra pieces for insurance.

I put all the fittings together that I could initially then brought down the two five foot pipes into the stairwell where I joined them together with the T in the middle, the shortest nipple I could buy and a pipe flange.

Its a very good thing I bought extra fittings and pipe lengths!

The second pipe ended up several inches shorter than I thought it would.

The corner at the bottom was my biggest worry but with some adjusting, extra fittings etc. I built the whole pipe handrail with it laying down directly on the steps.

If I hadn’t purchased extra pipe and fittings for insurance I would have been off.

With it built I just had to hang it so I started with one screw in the center flange before moving to the top than the bottom.

Fortunately I had studs at every flange!

It still took a bit of adjusting after that to make sure everything was tightened down so there wasn’t any “wiggle” when grabbed.

I used 1/2″ pipe here and got worried that it was a little skimpy… Looking back 3/4″ would definitely have felt a lot beefier and more like the size of a “typical” handrail… And 1″ pipe would have worked very well.

But the 1/2″ is plenty strong enough.

The project cost me less than $100 and only took about an hour!