Designing stairs: How do I build a set of stairs?
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In this article we will discuss and determine how to calculate the rise and run for each step in your stair case. The ideal rise is seven inches and the ideal run is ten inches.
1) Determine the total rise of the stair case. For an indoor stair case, typically you can measure the height from the landing to the landing on the second floor. However, an outdoor stair case you may not be able to measure the height from the deck to the ground because the ground may not be level. Take into account any slope that the ground and when measuring the total rise.
Divide the total rise by 7 1/4 to get a first pass number of treads in the stair case. The resulting number most likely will be fractional round to the nearest whole number (rounding either up or down). For example, with a total rise is 96 inches. When divided by 7.25 results in 13.24 rounding down results 13 risers for this stair case.
Now, determine the exact height of each riser by dividing the total rise by the total number of risers. In our example, divide 96 by 13 which yields 7.3846 inches which is about 7 3/8 inches.
2) Determine the total run of the stair case. Take the number of steps multiplied by the tread width of 10 1/2. In our example this will result in a total run of 136 1/2 inches (11 feet 4 1/2 inches).
3) Calculate the length of the stringers. It will be helpful to have a scientific calculator handy. Using a bit of geometry we can calculate the length of the stringer. The stair case is effectively a right triangle with the stringer being the hypotenuse. Square the total run plus the square of the total rise. Then take the square root to determine the stringer length.
Square root ( (Total run)2 + (total rise)2 ) = stringer length
In the example the 18632.25 + 9216 = 27848.25, the square root of (27848.25) = 166.87 inches or 13 feet 10 7/8 inches.
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