How To Build And Attach Deck Stairs

hey what's up you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and today i'm going to show you step by step how to construct a set of steps like this it's a pretty easy project but it can be intimidating especially when you're cutting your own stringers so i'll walk you through each of the processes but but to start off with a good foundation literally it's nice to have a landing pad or at least knowing how this how you're going to set your steps in the ground that way you can get a good measurement and understand your rise needed from the ground surface to the deck to make sure you cut each step accordingly this is part of a much bigger project and if you want to see the full playlist of this deck and how we're breathing new life back into it go ahead and click right here and you'll see all those different videos in the breakdown if not if you want to jump into the steps let's look at the dimensions that we're dealing with for this application okay two critical dimensions when making the stairs and that is the rise what is the distance you need to go from your surface here a landing pad to the top of the deck boards and then also your run so how how far of a distance between the rim joists the deck itself out to your last stair to get this you can take a level from your surface [Applause] make sure the bubbles in the middle extending out the deck surface and then take your measurement and here we have 28 and a quarter as our rise now for run you have to know the deck the deck tread plates and how thick you want to go here we're using two standard deck boards which are both five and a half inches thick so we want a one inch overhang making each of the stairs with or run 10 inches so with one two three stairs we're going to have 30 inches of running now in our area and you should check your code because it does change a little bit area the area you can't have more than seven and three quarters of an inch for each any one of these steps and then also each step has to be within three eighths of an inch so you can't have an eight inch step in a seven and a half inch step because you'd be beyond that tolerance so each of these is going to be 7 and 1 16 of an inch for each step box now i'm going to take those two measurements and then that's how i'm going to cut these stringers out of a 2x12 before jumping into that i want to jump down and show you how we extended the rim joists to make sure the hangers had something to secure into so let's check that out okay i just wanted to show you guys on the back side in every instance is going to be a little different so i crawled down here this should show you how i extended out the rim joists so i can hang the stairs from this extension here what i did is i put some blocking in place these are actually two by twelves that's why they're longer than the two by tens and so put that blocking in place two of those and then i butted up the four by four post to that sinking um six inch structural screws so this monster through the outside rim joist because it's two it's actually a double rim joist so three inches into the four by four post which is actually three and a half inches so i'm going through the double rim joists and then three inches into the three and a half inches of the 4x4 post there so that's what i did for that one and then coming this way which you can you can see in the 4x4 post i attached it to these the blocking here with a four and a half inch so that's one inch into the one and a half inches of depth in that block and that's how it's secured uh to the blocking so this just gives you idea and pretty much every instance is going to be a little bit different so you're going to have to assess your situation but at least you guys will see how i handled this so now we're ready to start marking off and cutting our stringers i just want to run through what i have here and you'll need to do the same project i'm using a 2 by 12 pressure treated board and then a standard framing square and the key here is to get these small gauges which will help you mark exactly your run and your rise lock those in place so i have those locked at 10 inches for my run and 7 and 1 16 of an inch for my rise then when you go along all you're going to do is mark up and put those gauges on the edge of the board and then do your marks and then keep progressing down for each of your steps and i'll show you that in a minute what i use to cut them off mainly is adjust the sanders skill saw i'm using the 24 tooth blade and first dfi wires usually it's like one blade we're going to cut everything but it is nice to have like a 60 tooth plywood blade that's going to make for a nicer cut less splinters but it's not going to eat as much material if you see here you get some burn marks when you're doing your cuts your blade is probably worn out and that's if you're only using this a couple times a year that's a definite possibility so worth going to get a nice sharp blade and make the job easier blades are usually only eight to ten bucks depending on where you get them so i'll do most of the cuts with the skill saw but then i'll do the finish cut with a jigsaw so the circular saw obviously cuts at an arc right because it's circular so you cannot cut right up to the corner of your stair so you're going to cut up to the top corner and then there's going to be material on the bottom side and the jigsaw is what you're going to use to complete that so i'm going to go ahead and do one here and then show you guys kind of the process of marking out and cutting it so i'm offsetting a little bit here because of that crack in the 2 by 12. we're just taking that framing square with the gauges set to your rise and run you're just going to trace the outside for as many steps as you need now that top line i'm just going to extend down because that is actually going to be the back surface now for the start of the stair you have to get the bottom surface correct and instead of 7 and 1 16 in this instance i'm using 5 and 13 16 because i'm going to add one and a quarter of inches of tread on top of that and that's going to give me my total height so that's the markings i've made and just confirming so now before we cut the rest of them what i would do is take your stringer out just line it up roughly setting it in place and then you just you want to check your measurements so it is nice to have a little bit of your tread with you so whatever is going to be serving as that just making sure everything is lining up to your rise that you wanted uh probably mostly on the top surface and the bottom because these guys should be cut to the height that you desire for the rice so now you just match everything up then if everything looks good now the nice thing is you have a template to go knock out the rest of your stringers the stringers will be attached to the concrete landing pad with a two pressure treated 2x4 as a base plate to make sure this all fits i need to notch out the middle two stringers to make sure they can receive that base plate without any issues i've assembled the stringers together with the base plate and one of the tread boards this is so i'll know where to mark each of the stringers so i can install the hangers prior to getting everything suit finally secured so now using a hammer drill and also a half inch bit you can look down in the description i have a link to exactly the bit i was using i'm going to make two holes here on the base plate and that is to fit some anchors which will be holding everything secure to the landing pad [Applause] another project in the books and the progress on the deck continues next up we're going to do some seating and some planner boxes and start to pull everything together if you guys have any questions jump down in the comments i'm in there on a daily basis and happy to help any way i can also in the description you'll find all the links of the tools and parts we used for this project if this one helped you out don't forget to give us a like we always appreciate that and subscribe to our channel as we have new videos like this coming out on a weekly basis to help you guys around the house and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 171,769

Rating: 4.824719 out of 5

Keywords: ground level deck stairs, how to make stair stringers, how to design stair stringers, outdoor deck stairs, how to secure deck stairs to ground, how to secure stairs to deck

Id: 0K-WWKcB2vY

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 14 2020