Measure and build stairs

by Larry Angell

Let's learn how to make a beautiful and precise stairway. Building stairs seems challenging, but it's really rather simple if you use the right formula. This is how you measure and build professional-looking stairways with exact accuracy.



Before we get started on the process of building stairs, we'll need to take some important measurements of the staircase area. Well think of it like this: we have a certain amount of height from floor to ceiling that we need to reach and we need to do it within a certain distance. The part of the stairs that helps us accomplish the height is the stair riser. This is a vertical slab. The length part is the stair tread. Its a horizontal slab. The part of the stairs that will hold all of the weight is called the stringers. The stringers are the critical part of the stairway.



The treads are usually standard-sized boards around 10-inches. The size of the risers depends on the measured height from the bottom floor up to the top floor.



We will need to get a really close measurement from the bottom floor to the top floor, including the thickness of the particle board on the second floor. Now, we use the magic formula for calculating the height of each stair riser. Lets say that the distance from bottom floor to top floor including the thickness of the second floor (including particle board) is around 9 feet or 108 inches.



108 divided by 7 equals 15.428. That tells us that 15 risers will be needed. Next, let's divide 108 by 15 and we'll get right around 7 inches or the exact height each riser needs to be. The treads need to be right around 10 inches. The amount of treads will be one less than the amount of risers, so to find the total run or length of the stairs, we just multiply 10 by 14 and that tells us that our stairway will be 140 inches long.



Now, select a knot-free 2 X 12 stringer. We can get prefabricated wood or a cheaper selection can be a strong softwood like Fir or pine. It needs to be about one foot longer than your stair distance. This would need to be 120" or twelve feet long.



Next, laying the board flat, measure up the board about 8 inches to mark the first stair tread. You can use a carpenter's square to measure 10-inches over (the tread) and 7-inches up (the riser). We'll do this on each step. When that is done, we can go back to the bottom of the board to measure and cut out the first riser. The carpenter's square helps to make the stair cut exactly 7-inches.



When weve finished marking the stringer we can cut out the stairs with a handsaw or a Skilsaw. We will cut really close to the inside corner, but we'll need to complete the cut with a handsaw to get completely into the corners. When we finish that we can use the stringer as a pattern or a template for the other stringers by it on top of the other boards and tracing in the steps.



Once everything is all cut out and the stringers are identical, we can stand them up and secure them with screws or nails. Once the stringers are screwed or nailed securely in place well put the tread plates on and then the riser plates if we want enclosed stairs. There are special tread boards available that are rounded in front. Theyre made for carpeted stairs. Many people like to have hardwood stairs that are exposed; in that case we would want to use high quality oak or some other quality hardwood. That's how we make stairs for our home interior or our decks.

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