How to make stairs

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

Before we can start putting up the stairs, we'll need to take a few measurements. We need to think of it this way: we have so much height that we need to reach and we have to do it within a certain length.

The part of the stairs that will help us accomplish the height is the risers. The length part is the treads. The part of the stairs that will hold all the weight will be the stringers.

The treads are usually around 10-inches. That's kind of standard, but the risers completely depend on the height from the bottom floor to the top floor.

Now we need to get an exact measurement from the bottom floor to the second floor, including the second floor particle board.

Now, we use the formula for getting the height of each stair riser.Suppose the distance from bottom floor to top floor including the thickness of the second floor is about 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, while the board is laying flat, measure up about 8 inches to mark the first stair tread.Use a carpenter's square to measure 10-inches over(tread) and 7-inches up(riser).We'll do this on every step. Once that is done, we'll go back to the bottom of the board and measure and cut the first riser. We'll use the carpenter's square to make it exactly 7-inches.

Once this is all marked we can cut out the stairs with a Skilsaw. We can cut almost to the inside corner, but we'll need to complete the cut with a hand saw to get into the corners.When we get that done we can use it as a pattern for the other stringers by tracing in the steps.We are now ready to stand them up and secure them with nails or screws. Once the stringers are in place we can put the tread plates on and then the riser plates.

We can buy special tread boards that are rounded on the front. They work good for carpeted stairs. If we want to have hardwood stairs that are exposed, we will want to use high quality oak or some other hardwood.That's how we make stairs.