solved with one plug-in, thankyou!

Hi, I'm Brandon.
I am currently on a gap year, working at an architecture firm before going on to study this subject as a degree.
I have used SketchUp quite a bit before, but since starting work, I use it much more; and I've now discovered SketchUcation! it looks like a really interesting forum and have already made use of some ruby script plug-ins, especially those from Fredo6.

Most of my work is simple housing visualisations but every now and then it's something a little more ambitious and therefore difficult to model; like today. I am in the process of helping a colleague model a conceptual skyscraper and we are struggling with the spiral staircase; mostly the first bit... drawing the spiral (or rather a corkscrew as its in three dimensions.
I wondered if anyone here who's had a bit more time to look around and more experience with the program could help me? Is there a certain method or even better a Ruby Script that I could use to speed up this process and actually create an accurate line? (my current winging-it method doesn't look very consistent at all)
It would be even better if there was a way I could enter parameters, such as the total number of turns, the total height difference from end point to end point and the radius...

Any help with this would be much appreciated, and I look forward to browsing through this forum in times of need

Brandon