We have a loft in our new house and we've been struggling with a solution for a ladder up to the loft. The loft is at the start of a hallway, so we have a width of 105 cm to work with. The floor of the loft is 262 cm up. I drew about 15 different possibilities with ladders that fold up (none would work in the space requirements) and ladders that slide down (complicated, requiring 3 parts and special rails for the slidy parts).
In desperation I googled "clever folding stairs" and browsed through pictures, and then found a concept that I loved. It works beautifully, folding to the side to take just 16 cm of hallway space and folding out to a sturdy stair case with 45 cm wide steps, a comfortable angle, and taking you up in the proper direction instead of a ladder against the wall. Here's the result. Still needs to be stained.
Well, the hinges on the right side are both screwed and glued. Each hinge has 4 + 4 screws, good thick screws that reach almost to the other side of the stair. The glue is construction glue. On the left side, the hinges are on the bottom of the step so it's naturally stronger. If heavy things are going up we can just stay left. The stairs are mostly just used by my daughter who is small, so I think it should be good.
True. Or, possibly thru bolt the hinges to the rails and rungs using the largest washers you can get away. That could help some. Looking at the way they fold, support blocks under the rungs may work fine on the right rail, while blocks on the left, I imagine, will get in the way of the folding. They look like a great solution.