Once you’ve decided on what spiral staircase you want to buy, bought it, installed it, either by yourself or by a professional, then you can look in amazement at the great decision you made and be proud, but you’re not done. One thing that many new staircase owners regret eventually is that they didn’t take good enough care of their stairs. No matter what type of staircase you bought, material-wise, or whether or not it was an indoor or outdoor staircase, you’re going to need to take care of it the proper way, and often enough to where it doesn’t get damaged either by outside forces such as weather, wear and tear or spills/accidents.
If you’ve bought an iron staircase then you’ve got it a little easier. Iron is one of the most available metals on earth and is easy to clean, is reliable and doesn’t get damaged easily. If you want it to shine though, you’ll need to put in a little elbow grease. You can find it in everything at one point, whether it be a gate, fence, handrails, stairs, etc so learning how to take care of your stairs will also help in other areas. It’s a good useful knowledge to know, regardless of where or why you learned it.
What type of Staircase do you have?
The two main versions of iron for your staircases will be either cast or wrought iron. Both come from the same place, but they are manufactured differently and as an end result, look and work a little different. Nothing too drastic however.
Typically when you but a spiral staircase kit it will come with instructions on how to take care of it, so follow those and then just add whatever outside knowledge to that as well. The manufacturers of spiral staircases aren’t always the most concerned with your stairs lasting forever, so getting external feedback on how to care for them is something we definitely recommend.
Cleaning wrought iron spiral stairs
Clean during the appropriate weather: It should be common sense that you don’t want to set aside a day to clean your stairs if it’s going to be rainy, or dark outside so you can’t get the job done correctly. This obviously stands for the case of outdoor spiral staircases, because if you’re indoors, the weather doesn’t really effect you.
Indoor wrought iron stairs don’t really get the same kind of weather damage and degradation compared to outdoor wrought iron spiral staircases typically. If you keep the surfaces of these stairs dry as possible, it makes a huge difference. A good portion of the amount of damage that external stairs get is because of the rain, as well as they stay wet for a long period of time outside and that can cause water damage and rust. Simple using a damp cloth and a mild cleaner can clean your indoor stairs with ease. Outdoor stairs will obviously need to be clean at a much greater interval.
Removing rust: Rust is obviously the biggest enemy you’re going to have. Typically you will use a wire brush or something similar like sandpaper. It also depends on the amount of corrosion and rust on how rough of a brush you’ll need to use.
Apply rust inhibitor: Spray it down, according to the amount specified by the type of rust inhibitor you’re going to use. Make sure the surface is prepared properly. Just as the same with most types of metal degradation the corrosion is typically worse than it looks at first, the further you get in there to clean, the more you’re going to realize the damage is surprising. This is typically the case anyways. You can use the rust inhibitor as a primer for a topcoat of paint like glossy or enamal, or just a final coat.