Brick Walkway: Adding Steps

To prevent a step from moving over time, it’s a good idea to give it a solid concrete foundation. The foundation described here is a simple earth-formed concrete slab on three sides with a fourth wall made from a 2-in. by 8-in. board held in place by a couple of concrete blocks. We added a rebar ladder to give the footing strength 1. Fill the form with concrete (for a job this small, you can mix it from a bag) and allow it to set overnight before laying the concrete block for the steps.

On top of the footing, install two rows of concrete blocks (different sizes for each step) using the same mortar recipe as for the mortared border 2. Outdoor steps tend to have much deeper treads than stairs inside a house, so a comfortable width spaces the block faces 13 in. apart for a finished tread width of 14 in. (which includes 1 in. for tread overhang) 3.

The riser is formed from bricks set on end (also call a soldier course) set directly on the block. To make quick work of laying a soldier course, set the first and last brick and run a stringline between them, aligned with their top outside edges. Fill in with bricks to the twine to achieve uniformity 4. For the step treads, we matched the existing 2-in. fieldstone treads that lead to the porch 5.

Excerpted from Masonry Complete (The Taunton Press, 2012) by Cody Macfie

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