How to Build Stair Stringers

you you hi I'm Wayne ladies from cottage life you know most folks at the cottage would consider building a deck but often the idea of building stairs scares them because the stringer layout is very challenging or at least they think it is I'm here today to show you how to do this in a simple fashion the first thing we need to do is determine our rise the rise of our steps will determine the number of treads I have affixed the 2x4 word to this deck simply clamped it on and this way I will be able to determine the height from the ground I'm just going to pick an arbitrary point here and I measure this and I get forty three-and-a-half Ontario Building Code says this step must be anywhere between four and seven eighths and seven and seven eighths I'm kind of partial to seven so if I divide that into forty three and a half I come up with around six steps now six steps a typical tread is going to be about ten inches obviously my run then six times ten would be sixty inches away from the deck now I'd like to measure away from the deck that sixty inches is just to make sure that my rise is still consistent in cottage country that's not likely to be the case so I measure at 60 and I'm going to drop a vertical from there check that again 43 and a half can you believe it alright now I know my rise approximately forty three and a half and I don't my run sixty inches now I can build a stringer typically material used for a stringer is going to be two by ten or two by twelve stock you don't want to make mistakes with that material it's expensive so what I suggest for a first-time stair builder is perhaps do the layout on a piece of scrap plywood and that might save you that embarrassing trip back to the lumberyard for an extra stringer alright our rise was forty three and a half inches well you don't have to be much of a scholar to realize that seven doesn't go into that evenly we're going to have six steps times 742 that's not going to be quite enough so I'm going to have to look at some fraction then for my rise seven and a quarter inches times six will give me my forty three and a half so I know that my rise is seven hundred or inches now we we need a square I don't mean your brother-in-law I mean a carpenter square and this will help us do the layout accurately I'm going to set the square down on my template to give me a seven and a quarter inch rise and a ten inch run okay now I can draw that there's an actual height of my stare that actually run on my stare okay rise run you don't need to use a tool like this or an accessory like this but I like using stair gauges or angle gauges because they'll maintain perfect accuracy every time I do my layout now it's easy for me to move my square down my stringer and as soon as my seven and a quarter meets this line my run draw I should note that I made sure to leave enough room here for my top step don't start too close to the top of the board I need to know the ten inches back here my top step if you don't have stair gauges you can fashion something similar with using a simple piece of lumber a couple of handy clamps not nearly as pretty but okay there's my sevinor core tends not quite on there there we go clamp down now I've made a good alternate system a little cheaper than the stare gauges five that's the end of my sixth step now each one of these steps should measure seven and a quarter of inches with the one-and-a-half inch top step so my first step should be inch and a half narrower than the rest this is the bottom of my step measures an inch and a half less than the others now but when I add my inch and a half tread on top seven and a quarter seven and a quarter seven and quarter seven a quarter to the top now let's also draw my top tread 10 inches the square around perpendicular line voila there's the layout for our stringer and an inch and a half for the top step okay so that's about it we started out by determining our rise we're able to determine a run based on the rise and now we've created a simple template that we can go to the lumber store or our material in fact this template would serve as a guide for all of your stringers just simply cut out the rest of it you've already done the math lay it out on your lumber and proceed from there you know the code varies quite a bit so you want to make sure before you start a project like this that you check with your local building

Channel: Cottage Life

Views: 1,170,420

Rating: 4.8450279 out of 5

Keywords: cottage stairs, stair stinger, stair stringers, how to build stair stringers, stringers, building stairs, making stairs, how to, stairs, Cottage Life, howto, stringer, Cottage, how to build stairs, how to build deck stairs, how to build stairs for a deck, how to cut stair stringers, building stairs for a deck, how to make stair stringers, how to make stairs, stair stringer layout, cutting stair stringers, making stair stringers, building stair stringers, building steps for a deck

Id: Z2uHj2mJkvc

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2010