- 1). Calculate the rise and run of your staircase before considering any cuts by first placing a straight board on the edge of the top of the deck. Measure the distance between the board and the landing location. This will give you the rise. Divide the overall rise by the rise of each step, which according to Popular Mechanics is generally seven inches, to find out how many steps you will need. Round to the nearest whole number and then divide the overall rise by the number of steps in order to get the exact rise of each step.
- 2). Calculate the overall run of the staircase and the run of each step by multiplying the number of steps by the run of each step. Popular Mechanics suggests that the run for each step should be approximately 10 inches.
- 3). Begin making your cuts to the stringers to form the brace of what will become the steps. Cut out the two-inch by 12-inch boards that will serve as the stringers adhering to the measurements you took regarding rise and run. Use a framing square with stair gauges and pencil to mark the stringers and a circular saw to make the cuts. Cut two more identical stringers or more, depending on the width of your staircase. Cut the first step of each stringer to the measurement of the rise minus the thickness of the tread boards, for the first step only.
- 4). Cut the risers according to the width of your staircase and to the rise of each individual step using a circular saw. Cut the tread boards using a circular saw according to the staircase width.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -