I'm ready to build stairs on my deck and have a question. To describe my deck, here's the following:

18ft wide at the house and 22ft wide at the front; to better describe, the left side starts out from the house straight for 5ft then goes 45 degrees (to the left) for 2ft, straightens out for 6ft then back to the right at 45 degrees for another 2ft.

I'm am building the stairs off the left side of the deck close to the house. My goal was to build off to the left down to a landing and then build the stairs from the landing to the right towards the yard (an L shape). Does this make sense? I feel comfortable with the stair calculations but am unsure about a few things. My questions are the following:

When I build the landing, normally I would mount the support posts to the corners. However, with Trex, the rail posts would bolt on the inside of the landing in the same spot where the support posts are. Obviously, both posts can't occupy the inside corners of the landing. Is there a way to get around this?

Also, my vertical drop is 6' 1". The way I calculated it now, I'll probably have 5 steps to the landing and 3 steps to the ground (this is because I have to make it past the front portion of the deck which is wider before I change direction towards it). Is it ok to do that? Or do they have to be 4 and 4?

Thanks,

martyc

 

I usually build my support posts and newel posts as one through post, not separating them, so they can occupy the same hole (since it is the same piece of wood)
As well, if the landing has to be offset, make it offset to the top side, rather than the bottom if possible. It just looks better IMO.

 

Larry, thanks for the info but I'm unable to build the post as one piece since it's a Trex deck which has Trex posts. Also, thanks for the advice with the stairs offset. Right now, the longer run is the top part of the stairs. I may be stuck with that design based on the shape of the deck and the vertical drop. I'll go over the specs again and see if I can make any changes.


martyc

 

Copy that on the trex newel posts. You may have to splice them to the support posts with a lap joint and carriage bolts, so they share the same vertical plane.

I'll catch a nap while waiting to post this, since someone has placed a time limit on posts. Someone fill me in. I don't have the time to sit here and wait 360 seconds to post an answer that takes 30 seconds to do.

 

By my calculations your steps will be in excesss of 9 inches high. The desired step height is 7 inches.