The Easiest Way to Build Stairs || Stair Stringers are Easy

this video was sponsored by butcherbox oh hey in this video i'm going to show you how i built this set of stairs right here they're rock solid and they're much easier to build than you would think so follow along watch the video check the video description for links to tools and supplies and all that stuff there's also a link down there to our website where we've got a bunch of sweet merchandise hats t-shirts motivational posters stickers downloadable digital plans i mean all sorts of stuff so check that out but for now stairs we're gonna build them [Music] all right people the first thing i needed to do was well unfortunately pour some more concrete you're probably wondering why i didn't pour this concrete when i poured the rest of the footings for the treeless tree house well that's because i forgot i needed a landing for my staircase it's also because i wasn't originally going to build a staircase i was going to build a ladder because this is supposed to be like a tree house but then i realized if we only had a ladder we'd have to carry all the lumber for the second story up a ladder so i decided to go staircase to make it easier on myself totally disregarding my son's wishes no i'm just kidding he's super excited to have a staircase but in order to have a staircase we need to have a solid landing which means more concrete so before i did anything else i needed to build a form for said concrete i had a bunch of this pressure treated douglas fir scrap laying around so i decided just to use these two by tens so i screwed four of them together to make a nice 40 by 40 inch square with my form constructed i next needed to determine the height that i wanted the top of my landing to [Music] well land at so i just measured down to the top of the footing that seemed like a good place and i tied a string onto the footing and stretched it out to about where i wanted my landing to start this is going to help me make sure that i get the top of the landing perfectly level with the top of the footing we tied a string on craig leveled it out and we plopped our form into this hole that i dug next we're going to have to raise this landing form up so that it's perfectly level with that footing i also measured from the edge of our tower to make sure that it was perfectly parallel to our tower that'll help us align our stairs when we get to constructing them then i hammered in a bunch of wooden stakes and using some of these rockler squeeze clamps i just clamped the form to the stakes until everything was nice and level and i nailed the stakes to the form to keep it elevated once we had enough stakes in the ground to hold the form at the right height and made sure that it was nice and level well actually it's only level left to right i gave it a little bit of slope off the back so that when water lands it'll have some place to run but you just want to make sure that it's level left to right so your stairs aren't and with the easy part done it was time to move on to the hard part which was unfortunately the concrete work now the reason i should have done this when i did my footings is because for my footings i just called a cement truck and it poured all the concrete and mixed it for me but i wasn't about to order another cement truck for a little landing this one we're going to do the old-fashioned way manual labor so we filled up the bottom of the form with gravel and packed it down and i made a little rebar structure to give the concrete some strength then we started mixing 80 pound bags of 5000 psi concrete and the foreman pointed out the few spots we missed yeah i know buddy we're not done yet just hold your horses but in no time we were done mixing all the concrete and our form was filled up very nicely so i grabbed a scrap piece of our decking material and i used it to screed off the top and get it nice and level now because this is going to be a landing meaning you're going to walk on it i used a push broom and i brushed the top to give it a little texture so you wouldn't slip and slide all over the place and then i used this little edging tool to give it a nice rounded over edge so that it wouldn't chip off and break and it would look kind of like a miniature sidewalk and then to top it all off of course each member of our family had to put a handprint in it because what's wet concrete if you don't put your handprint in it does it even really exist so i put mine in the foreman put his in the middle and then my wife put hers on the outside ah family memories as you can see the back of the form drops off just a little bit to give it some slope and the front of the form is perfectly level with the top of our footing this will make doing the math for our stairs much easier because we know the height of everything next we got to figure out well all the math for our stairs which is not my favorite part now there's a couple different ways you can do this you can take the total height of your structure for ours it's 106.375 and divide it by 7.5 which is a good rise height for each step that gave us 14.183 so you can play around with this a little bit and try and find a good way to divide out the height so you get a good number making sure that your rise stays between six and eight inches or else it's going to get funky or you can get on this website mycarpentry.com and they have a stair calculator so you just enter in your height you enter in your desired rise so we put seven and a half you enter in your desired run or your tread width so i put in 10 and a half and you press calculate it's going to tell you how many steps you'll get it's going to tell you the height that each step needs to be and it's even going to give you a little diagram to show exactly how you need to cut all your parts and pieces this by far is the easiest way to figure out how to cut your stringers which we're going to do now now to lay out your stringers you can do it in a couple different ways a common way is just to use a square like this you figure out your rise you get that number right here and you figure out your run you put that number over there and then you just trace it out that gives you a step shape then all you have to do is take that square and you move it on down you line it up with that same rise on the corner of your run you figure out your run dimension on the bottom and you trace that out again but i don't think this is the most accurate way to do this because your square can move around a little bit each time and you don't know if you're getting it perfect now they do make these little nuts that screw onto a square for this purpose and they act as little stops so you get the dimensions locked right in and then you just set it on the side and you can work your way all the way down but i don't have any of those nuts so i'm going to show you another quick way to do it and that's just to make a stringer jig basically you're just going to need a piece of wood that's as wide or a little bit wider than the rise of your stairs now our rise is right around seven and a half inches so i'm going to mark up on the edge of this board seven and a half inches right there that's my rise and then i'm going to mark my run which for these stairs is going to be 10 and a half inches we're going to have a half inch overhang on our actual treads which will bring the stairs out to 11 inches so i mark over 10 and a half inches right there then i connect those two dots and i make this cool triangle shape and then just so i don't get things confused i like to just label it my rise on this side and then i'll write run down here so i know exactly what is what next i'm going to take that piece of wood and i'm going to cut right along that line so i'm left with this cool little triangle piece once i get that cut off and it falls nicely on the ground all you gotta do is pick it up and then you're just gonna screw it to a nice piece of scrap wood like this this is going to be your stop so we'll just add a couple wood screws right through the back of the piece of plywood one on the top and one on the bottom and this is going to lock everything together nice and secure you don't have to worry about the two boards being square to one another that doesn't really matter you just need a stop piece on the back and it looks like that then using our handy dandy jig we're gonna start at the top of the board and mark our first step using our run measurement of 10 and a half inches then we're just gonna slide the jig down until our rise side is right on the line of our run and we're gonna just trace out that shape that gives us step number two then we're gonna move down and you know do the exact same thing over again that's gonna give us our third step and so on and so forth at the top we're gonna flip our jig around on the other side right on the edge of our run and using our rise we're going to draw a line that gives us the angle for the top of our stringer to land and then we're just going to keep working our way down our 2 by 12 marking out all of our stairs until we get to the bottom and we know how many stairs we need because of that handy dandy stair calculator at the bottom we're going to do the same thing we did on the top flip the jig around on the other side and we're going to draw a line that'll give us an angle for the bottom of our stringer to land on the landing but at the bottom we have to do one more thing we have to measure up from that bottom line the thickness of our stair treads and we want to cut along that line to make that bottom step just that much shorter that way when we add our treads to each reoccurring step the height or rise will be correct so after marking up 7 8 of an inch because that is going to be the thickness of our decking i put the square across all those marks and i draw a nice straight line this is our new cut line for that bottom portion now that we have our stringers all traced out it's as simple as just cutting along our pencil line for this i like to just use a skill saw now you're not going to get a perfectly straight vertical cut at the end of your cut with a skill saw because the blade is round so you're just gonna go all the way to the edge with the top of your cut and then we'll come back and finish it off by hand with a pole saw so you just go you cut along your line on your rise you cut along your line on your run making sure to stay on the inside of your line not the outside because that would shrink down your rise and run by the width of your blade anyways back and forth and back and forth at some point my ears are starting to hurt so craig brought me my pair of isotunes free oh yes sweet audio relief that's better and i got back to work finishing all my cuts rise run rise run run rise and pretty soon i had all my initial cuts done then i just took my japanese flush cut pole saw slid it into the crack and a zip zip zip zap zap zap zoop zoop zoop i finished the cuts on each one of my stair little cutout thing in my whatsits my my rises and my run thingies and now for the moment of truth if we did our math correctly this should sit on our landing and also hit the top of our tower with each step being very nice and level and we're able to just whoop see daisy um i guess i forgot that uh oh yeah we got to build more and then add the steps i always forget that part you guys like meat i like meat but only if i know the meat that i'm eating comes from a reliable good quality source which is why i'm so happy to say that this video is sponsored by our friends at butcher box where you can get meat delivered right to your door and you know it's good quality i'm talking about 100 grass-fed pasture-raised beef usda certified organic free-range chicken wild caught seafood you got salmon haddock cod scallops humanely raised and treated pork we just got a box we got some awesome stuff we got our bacon in here we got scallops we got steak we got pork chops we got italian sausage we got 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good about your next meal so with one stringer cut out and tested to make sure it was the right size we can now use that stringer as our template to trace out our remaining two stringers we're gonna do three stringers in total because the width of our stairs is only going to be 36 inches wide if you went up to like 48 or 50 or 60 inches wide obviously you're probably going to want more stringers so that they're each at least 16 on center but we only needed three so we started chopping them down blowing some dust and well chopping them down some more really this is a very repetitive process skill saw pulsa zip zap soup i think yeah get the whole picture and in no time we had another stringer and because we used our first stringer as the template for our second stringer we know this one's going to be exactly the same size and shape as the first one so we set it up there and things are looking pretty good so with our third and final stringer cut out it was time to start thinking about installing these now they make little metal brackets kind of like joist hangers that you can hook onto the stringer i don't really love those because in my opinion they're a little wobbly so instead of hanging these off the bottom of our top board we're just going to add another board below so that the entire top of the stringer has a firm place to land and then we can anchor it in from the back of those boards nice and snug and we don't have to use any of those metal brackets not that there's anything wrong with the metal brackets it's just the stairs that i've done in the past with those metal brackets they just seem to have a little more wobble than when you can get the top of the stringer set firmly on a nice solid piece of wood so a little two by six later and we got a nice solid area to land all three of our stringers so we set all three stringers roughly in place where we wanted them and next we needed to make sure that our stringers were going to be perfectly square to our tower so we took another piece of string a piece of string to align our stringers that's funny and running it from the back of the tower we ran it all the way past our stringers and measured over from the string to the edge of the stringer then we just had to measure over from the edge of our tower to our stringer that same distance and now we knew that the stringer was perfectly square on the top and the bottom then before we start hooking these things to our tower i wanted to cut two more pieces now these are going to be our side little brace pieces well they're not really braces they're more aesthetically pleasing you don't need these when you're building stairs but i like to put these little side rails on because it just looks a lot nicer and neater basically this whole piece is going to go on the side of both of our outside stringers and it's going to cover up the edge of all of our deck boards so you just get a nice smooth look of your stairs top to bottom without seeing those exposed you know cut edges of your treads it'll all make sense later don't worry about it the other thing we need to do is prepare our middle stringer to be anchored down to the bottom of our landing so on the very front of our middle stringer we're going to notch out a little section so that it can sit over this pressure treated 2x4 that we're going to bolt down to the landing itself some people notch out the outside too but i don't bother with that i just screw the outside to the 2x4 because it's a lot easier and if you're not putting that decorative piece on the outside it looks a lot cleaner too so we're just going to notch out the middle one so using a little scrap piece of said 2x4 i trace it out on the bottom of that middle stringer and then i cut it out the same way i cut each individual step just with a skill saw and finishing it up with the pole saw that gives us a nice little cut out to sit over that pressure treated 2x4 and if none of this makes any sense don't worry it'll all come together in the end next we just had to get our first stringer in the exact right position meaning that all the steps are level once we had our first stringer in the correct position and all leveled out craig held it and i screwed it in from the back with two structural screws now our first stringer is anchored in place next it's time to figure out our other two remaining stringers but first we want to make sure they're all in the correct position and spaced out evenly so i measured the width between our first stringer and our other outside stringer and i cut a 2x4 to that length to slide perfectly in between them keep in mind that far outside stringer is not installed yet it's just sitting there once i wedge this 2x4 in between i screw it in from the outside at the base so it's going through the bottom of my stringer and directly into that 2x4 i do this on one side and then i go over and do the same thing on the other side this permanently sets the width of our two outside stringers then we have to match that width on the top so i take that same width that i did on the bottom i subtract an inch and a half because that's the width of our middle stringer and then i cut that piece directly in half now i should have two pieces that i can use as spacer blocks one on the left and one on the right to perfectly center our middle stringer and set the width of our stringers at the top of our staircase have i said stringers enough yet in this video holy cow how many times can i say the same stinking word now with our other piece before we hook it to the top we're going to use that as a spacer block on the bottom and slide our middle stringer all the way over to get it perfectly centered and if we did our math right when we take out the spacer block on one side we should be able to move it over to the other side and it should be the exact same distance just like that now that we know everything is aligned correctly and spaced out i take that other spacer block and i stick it on the other side of my middle stringer at the top and i screw it in place now we can hook our last two stringers in from the back again with two like six inch long structural screws those things aren't going anywhere and then to keep that middle stringer in place at the bottom i just toenail it in with a few screws from either side this isn't structural at all it's just to hold that middle stringer in place until we put our treads on next it's time to put on our little decorative side pieces i'm sure these have a proper name but i don't know what it is so i'm gonna call them little decorative side pieces i just clamp them in place with a few of those rockler clamps and i just add a bunch of screws from the outside right into our stringer zip zip zap zap zoop zoop and once i have one side done i fill my mouth up with a bunch more screws and i do the other side as i mentioned these pieces aren't necessary the stairs would be plenty strong without them but even though they are just decorative they do add quite a bit of rigidity to the stairs and just make them that much stronger so i get my other piece in place clamped on and a few more screws and that one is ready to go and this thing's starting to look like a flipping staircase then the last thing i need to do before i start installing my treads was actually anchor the bottom of the stairs to our concrete landing so i drilled through the pressure treated wood first with a half inch drill bit and then i used the hammer drill drilling directly into the concrete i'm just going to put two half inch wedge anchors one on either side of that middle stringer and that should lock this base in place and keep these stairs from going anywhere i mean they're gonna be like hurricane proof at this point too bad we don't live near the ocean because i'd like to see if these would withstand a hurricane anywho with my wedge anchors hammered in place i tighten them down with a nut washer and a little adjustable wrench because i couldn't find my socket set and alas we were ready to start adding our treads now for the treads i'm going to use the same vertical grain pine decking that i used for all the platforms so i set up a little stop on my chop saw because every single tread is going to be the exact same width and i just start cutting pieces down like there's no tomorrow but in actuality there is a tomorrow i know that because i have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow i can't forget it's at 11 o'clock then with a bunch of pieces cut i start slapping them in place now the first thing you're going to want to do is put a riser piece on the back of your stairs you don't want to put your treads down and set the risers on top because that will mess everything up so riser first and then you can start laying in your treads it works out perfectly that three of these pieces is the exact right depth to make one step with a half inch overhang once you put the riser on so i just start putting these pieces in place and screwing them right into each one of my stringers on both sides and the middle and i just cut a couple eighth inch little spacer pieces to space them all out the foreman came over and started hand feeding me blackberries so i had just enough energy to power through this thing and hopefully get these entire stairs knocked out in one day i did have to stop and take a little break because the foreman found a stick and for some reason needed me to screw a deck screw into the end of it i'm not sure what he wanted this for but he promised me he had a plan so i kindly obliged and then it was back to business laying out more risers and treads and screwing them on eventually i made the foreman quit playing with a stick and get to work now i know what you're thinking he needs safety glasses but don't worry i just told him to be a real woodworker and close your eyes when you make the cut duh well go back to cutting a piece piece of wood using a tin and i'm gonna cut this board let's let's murder this board [Music] uh-oh if he can talk on camera like that i'm gonna be out of a job soon anyways with the foreman slicing up boards and handing them to me i just kept creeping my way up to the top of the stairs you know this is the first time that i feel like the foreman was actually pulling his weight on the project it was nice that i didn't have to climb down and up the stairs every time i needed a new board pretty soon the whole family was out on the staircase rooting me on probably because they wanted me to hurry up and finish because i was supposed to cook dinner and in the last bits of twilight the stairs were completely finished not bad for a one-day build as you can see stairs they're really not that complicated so go build yourself some and finally get to that top shelf stairs hey hope you enjoyed that video not too shabby and we can go up and down down and up next week we're building a bridge from here all the way over there so you're going to want to stick around for that also check the link in the video description for links to products and tools and everything we used in the video there's a link to our website with sweet merchandise there's a patreon link sorry i'm winded i'm climbing so many stairs anyways patreon link and you can get behind the scenes footage and live question and answer and um a whole bunch of other stuff ah oh i gotta work out more

Channel: Bourbon Moth Woodworking

Views: 968,205

Keywords: stair stringer, stair stringers, how to build deck stairs, deck stairs, building stairs, how to build stairs, making stairs, how to build stairs for a deck, how to cut stair stringers, building stairs for a deck, how to, do it yourself, treads and risers, construction math, home improvement, treehousee, stilted house, diy stairs, stairs made easy, The Easiest Way to Build Stairs, Stair Stringers are Easy, stair stringers for deck, stair stringers 2x10 or 2x12, easy stairs

Id: qGE43pFPnkA

Length: 27min 20sec (1640 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022