What Nobody Will Tell You About Building Deck Stairs

hey everybody welcome back it's D here today I'm going to show you how to build deck stairs on your own and the easiest way to do that is to take a 2x4 and I have it clamped on the deck right here and the first measurement you're going to need which is the most important is called your total rise and what that is is quite simply the distance between the top of your deck to the bottom to your ground or concrete pad so you want to take your tape measure put it on your round and get the measurement to the bottom of the 2x4 here that's going to give you your total rise now next Once you have that number you want to determine how many Treads you need let's take a look at this template I have over here and a tip for you if you new to building stairs I absolutely think it's a great idea to do templates like grab a piece of OSB or Plywood And template it first before you do your layout on your 2X 12 because those are more expensive it also gives you peace of mind now there's two words and terminologies that are really important when it comes to building stairs the first is rise and that's that vertical measurement right here the second is run and that is where the Treads sit right here now the rise or the ideal rise that we're looking for is 7 in that's really The Sweet Spot for stair building and for the run it's around 10 in minimum now it's so important that you consult your local building codes to find out the exact numbers and measurements for your area because they vary depending on where you live so once you have your total rise you want to find out how many Treads you're going to need and the easiest way to get your measurements is to use an online deck Stringer calculator to get your exact numbers once you have your numbers you are ready to go let me grab the lumber and show you guys this is what we're using today and we're going with 2x2 material pressure treated of course for the Stringer and that is really what you want to work with because by the time you make all your cutouts for the Stringer it has to be 2x 12 it's really windy let's get up onto the deck now and do our cutouts before I get blown away okay so now that I have my lumber here in order to do the layout on our Stringer you're going to want to get yourself one of these this is an essential tool this is your framing square now you're going to notice that this part is skinny we call this the tongue and this part is thicker we call this the body or the blade and I also have a set of stair gauges these are about $11 they're awesome I think it really simplifies building stairs you can also use a clamp and a piece of lumber but let's take this to our 2x2 now and we can lay out our stairs so I have my framing square and my stair gauge and I'm looking to set this on my rise so these are my numbers here and I'm going to set it at 6 and a/4 so I've had this framing square for a long time it's rusted up a bit but it works right so I'm going to tighten that at six and 3/4 yours will probably be over here a bit at 7 so there we have it 6 and 3/4 that is my rise on that the on the tongue the thin part going to go over here now and do the run right minimum run is 10 in so I'm going to have ours at just 10 and A4 tighten that so that there is our framing square with our stair gauges and now we can take it to our 2x2 and test it out so what I'd like to do at this point is I have my rise over here and I'm just going to test it out this is a 2x2 I'm just using the back side of my Stringer and I'm just going to trace this on my 2x 12 [Music] here and I'm using the outside here to trace instead of the inside some Carpenters use the inside I find when you're learning personally it's easier to see it if it's on the outside we're testing our rise here so you want to double check that your measurements are accurate you've got the 6 and 3/4 there or your 7 in for you guys at home and then we will double check this measurement as well and I'm looking for 10 and A4 there we go so I got my framing square here this is the end of my board I've just cut it in half this is going to be a riser right here so I'm going to leave just a little bit of space there and now we can lay out our [Music] Stringer so that is our run and that's our rise so that's our tread and then we can just slide it over and we're looking to match up those two [Music] points so we have one tread here another tread and then we'll do one more here once you get to the end here you can see we have one two three of the risers this is going to be the T of our Stringer so at this point we're going to take off the gauges at this point we're going to flip it to a 90 here this is going to be the top of our Stringer and line up this and we're creating a 90 here so this is going to be the top of our Stringer so we're going to cut this out now if we look at the base this is the bottom of our Stringer I'm just going to draw in my last Riser here so I'm going to line it up in the corner band draw my last riser in and flip it and then I'm going to cut it out make sure it's on the line there so that's the top where our deck is where the header is and then that is the bottom over there and now we can cut it out and to make my cuts I'm going to use be using my skill saw to make my cuts and for the corners use your jigs saw or a Handa cuz you don't want to overcut this really important [Music] [Music] okay okay so for these Corners here I'm just going to use my jigsaw looking for nice clean cuts in the corners that's what I want to see taking a look at the Stringer that I've just cut out you're going to notice the ground is here and this Riser is shorter than the rest by 5 and 1/4 in that is because I'm using pressure treated lumber it's all going to make sense as we do the install you're also going to notice here that I have made a mark in pencil and I'm going to cut this out now on my jigsaw because this is how we're going to secure our stringers to our con conrete pad let's go do it so that right there is what we're going to cut out you're looking at 3 and 1/2 in 1 and 1/2 [Music] in okay now that we have our Notch we can go install our stringers now because we live in an area with a lot of wet weather we are definitely going to be using Joy tape you use whatever you like but this is self-sealing so all of those screw holes that get driven into your stringers these are going to self seal it's going to make your deck and your stringers last longer which we like it's also going to protect you from rot and Decay good things to keep in mind especially with the rain that we have been having now to install it I'm actually going to be putting the joist tape along the back side of my Stringer where it's going to make contact with our hangers we've got some really cool hangers going in and you can just take your hand as simple as that smooth it out so at this point you are now ready to map out your Stringer layout here on your Ledger or your Rim Joy I'm going to Mark out 16in centers you want to line up your level and Mark that out 16in centers a reminder if you're doing confident you're probably going to be wanting to look at 12 in centers for your layout [Music] so off of there every 16 in mark it out and that is where we're going to have our joist hangers this right here is one of the most critical steps when building a deck and it's your adjustable Stringer hanger you definitely want to use one of these to attach your stringers to your deck now like the name says it's adjustable grab your Stringer this is the back side and grab the side that has all the holes on it now this is actually important a lot of people miss this step place it on your Stringer this is adjustable depending on the slope of your staircase of your stairs and bend it see that once you have it bent you can now install it on your Rim joist and don't forget really important these right here are the screws that you need these are the number nines and I'm using an inch and a half it's really important anytime you're using a hanger you want to use the hanger and it's going to tell you exactly what Fasteners you need and it has to be the exact same metal so let's install it now on our [Music] [Music] Ledger okay and because you guys can't see very well now on the underside you want to definitely make sure manufacturer says you have to hit up a screw second from the bottom okay make sure you have a screw second from the [Applause] bottom as each Stringer goes in you want to check that you are installing them perfectly level right so now that I have my stringers in place we can move on to our masonry anchors we want to make sure that the 2x4 at the base of our stringers are nice and secure to your concrete pad and with these they're not going to go anywhere so before installing or sleeve anchor I want to use some angle brackets to secure them to the 2x4 you can also Beef It Up with more angle brackets on each and every Stringer that's going to take care of that uplift the wind that gets under your stairs in severe weather and lifts it up this will keep it down on the ground where we want it something critical I forgot to mention when your stringers are going in before you install the angle brackets make sure they are going in nice and straight you can check that by using a laser be sure to do [Music] that now once you have all of your stringers nice and secure we can go on to our masonry anchor don't forget set your drill to the Hammer setting and it's important to go down a/4 in more than the depth of your masonry anchor Showtime with your anchor there you go once you've driven it in handy old crescent wrench tighten as you go and definitely have a couple of these I'd put definitely two and if you have a bigger set of stairs you can always throw some more in so at this point grab your deck boards I have two per run and I have a spacer a one 16th spacer along the middle for drainage and also for air and I have a carpenter Square grab your Carpenter square and I'm lining up my stairs with my fa show we want a nice straight line let's get started on the install don't forget when you cut your Lumber you want ingrain sealer I still have to do that and don't forget your nosing check your code book and double check that you have your proper allowance for your overhang here for your nosing so to secure your deckboards what I like to do line up your Stringer that's where my screw holes are going and I'm using these types of screws this is from a hidden Fastener system that I use on my other decking videos I'm going to show you what this looks like at the end it's pretty cool and to install it you need a Star Drive bit that's a Star Drive bit and you can get those out of the way see what we got here all right that is nice can you see that Mark It screw through it repeat now I've installed already my top tread my Riser at my second tread and then Riser so I'm really just working from my top down and then I have a bit of a shadow Gap here for drainage it's actually common to to install your risers first so just install it whichever way works best for your installation this is just what's working for me and continue and to face screw into my risers now [Applause] to take good care of your stairs and deck you definitely want to stain it and I don't recommend sanding I will link to that video no sanding in our playlist all on deck building and this is really an intermediate project so if you want something really simple the best way to build the deck if you're a beginner is this one right here it's absolutely the easiest way I know check it out and please tell me what you think in the comments I'll see you in the next one everyone thanks so much

Channel: Daru Dhillon

Views: 113,726

Keywords: deck building, deck build, decks stairs, deck stringer, deck stringer hanger, deck building stairs, how to build deck stairs, deck stair stringer, deck stair build, how to build a deck, above ground deck, deck build diy, diy deck, decking, diy deck build, rise and run, how to cut deck stringer, stringer, diy, home improvement, do it yourself, stair building, how to build stairs, how to cut stair stringers, building stairs, deck framing, first tim building stairs, how to

Id: VvHZ5aPQGtY

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024