Building my first deck on my own in 13 years. Questions about the stairs.
Pouring a concrete pad for a landing. pour it before I cut the stringers to give me a set place to calculate, or after, floating the stringers just above the concrete until it dries?
How to cut and set the stringers? By that I mean, I plan on adding 1 tread up to be even with the top of the joists, making it actually part of the deck. I think I prefer that to dropping a fake rim joist and setting the stairs lower, or notching for the rim joist underneath and around back of it.
Does anyone use any hangers when attaching stringers?
Thanks for any replies. I already have the gray hair from worrying about things, I don’t want to lose it scratching my head over this stuff.
Replies
>> I plan on adding 1 tread up to be even with the top of the joists, making it actually part of the deck. I think I prefer that to dropping a fake rim joist and setting the stairs lower, or notching for the rim joist underneath and around back of it. <<
By doing that you are going to mess with the way your stair hand rail intersects with your deck guard rail, possibly causing the necessity of a pair of handrail posts needing to be mounted to the side of the top step. Think it through on paper with a scale drawing, taking into account the desired heights of the 2 rails - guard and stair.
I wouldn't think so. The top tread in essence becomes just part of the deck, so the post can go at the top tread to keep everything in line.
If you are going to use ~36" high guard rails, it will very possibly cause an issue. If the deck guardrail posts are set back from the edge at all, it gets worse. You end up needing a short horozontal section of stair handrail at the top of the steps.
Ahh, I see what you're thinking.Picture a square deck. Take of one corner, about 3' in x 6' across. that's where the stairs are going. The outside stringer will attach to the box beam, end grain to end grain. They will be in the same plane. The stairs are actually part of the square, not an add on to it.
Tashler,
We sink posts to support the bottom of the stringers and come on up for the railing.
If this doesn't work for your style of railing you could hide the short posts under the stringers.
We use Teko plates/screws on the connection (inside out of sight).