Stira Company History
From Simple Idea to Successful Business
Michael Burke
Where it all began…
Michael Burke founded Stira Folding Attic Stairs Ltd in 1982. The idea stemmed from a request to repair an imported attic stairs and thus began the Stira History!
“I looked at it and immediately saw the problem and an opportunity. The problem was obvious, inferior material was used on the arms; the opportunity was that the product was a great idea it was just poorly made. As I had an engineering background it did not take long to build a prototype and test it out. I saw the problems with the design and began making improvements. It took six months to get the design sorted out but when I was finished with it I had a strong safe product to try out on the market.”
Michael Burke MD Stira.
When Michael had the design of the product ready he bought an old hay barn from his parents and began manufacturing the stairs on a small scale. The stairs were an immediate success in his local county Galway. In the first few years of the business little was spent on advertising, instead Stira relied on customers referring the friends and family to us, To this day we still get a large portion of our sales through referral and reputation.
Michael Burke continued to develop and upgrade the Stira to be the highest standard attic ladder on the market, until his death in 2010.
The Next Big Step
A TV Appearance That Made History
The company’s big break came in 1990 when the Stira was showcased on Ireland’s most popular current events programme “The Late Late Show” hosted by Gay Byrne. The show was dedicated to showcasing new, up and coming Irish businesses. The response from that show was incredible and catapulted Stira onto the national stage.
With this huge influx of new customers changes needed to be made to the factory and the way it operated to keep up with demand. This was the stage that Stira started to look towards international standards in manufacturing and invested a lot of money redesigning the factory and training employees in the new practices. This process took Stira the best part of 10 years and we are now members of the BSI and one of the only attic stairs/loft ladders in the world to be accepted.
Over that time modifications were made to the stairs; greater time and attention was spent on safety, strength and durability. Since the initial Stira was produced in 1982, the product design has changed dramatically. The timber Parana Pine was substituted with Southern Yellow Pine in 1989 making the ladder lighter and slimmer while still having the robust strength and durability that sets the Stira Folding Attic Stairs apart from the competition. The spring loading mechanism that keeps the unit closed has also undergone alteration and development to ensure a tight seal, reducing draft.
All components used on the Stira are produced within the company. Our highly trained and experienced fitters cover the whole of the island of Ireland. This gives us unique insight into attics, our team of fitters have been giving feedback from the 140,000 installations they have done and can talk directly to our engineers back in the factory. Thanks to this feedback Stiras can be fitted in 99% of situations.
Because our fitters, sales staff, engineers, and management are all in the same building we can solve issue quickly and use our 35 years of experience to continue making the highest quality attic ladders for our customers.
