hello thanks for joining me today I'm going to teach you how to make stair stringers we're gonna make an offset just like that one right there the first of all I need to have a plan before you even get started you need to have the measurements height of the deck I'll try to figure out how many steps we're gonna have and how deep and high each one's gonna be I'll help you uh understand that here in just a few minutes let's start off what we need to get going we're gonna need a square 16 inch by 24 inch plus a couple of clamps these are three inch clamps c-clamps but you can use a little bit smaller ones because we're not going to clamp the to the square to the beam we're just climbing the clamps to the square itself that's it that way that the square is well we get the same markings each time so we're just gonna push it up against the beams all alright so we have the the longer side of square on the bottom 24 inch side any source side on top the bottom of the square is measuring in our depth of our step so the C clamps are gonna go on the backside of a square just to make sure that the measurements on the front side of the square line up with the edge of the board so that's what they're there for okay so we want to make sure the measurements stay exactly the same and we can zip through this pretty well and easy and it won't to slide around we're trying to make the markings which is awesome okay so then we're gonna need a pencil or chopper to mark always double-checking our measurements measure twice cut once my grandfather used to always say it's a good it's good rule of thumb now we're gonna start in about 10 inches from the board you could have started out a little bit closer that's where I'm gonna start it lets me cut a little extra off which is nice so we're just gonna line it up and draw our first of me really later we're going to come back and draw a perpendicular line down from the first step and you'll see why we started back what we did right now we're just going to mark that V this is a treated pine which is one of the most common would use for structural lumber for decks and things like that so it's very wet that's why I have to use a sharpie not only does it look better for you guys but you can barely see the pencil myself so after mating the first feet we're lining the second one up so that our depth of our board the measurement right there on the on the outside of the square line right up exactly with the line all right now what about our depth of our steps let's talk about that most people are going to use ten and a half inches why to deck boards or to two by sixes are going to be 11 inches actual with side-by-side you're gonna put an eighth inch space between them so the rain the water can drain so you're gonna have 11 and 1/8 inch where you use average persons who use 10 and a half inches on the depth which was gonna leave a roughly 5/8 of an inch overhang kind of stare notice if you will I love people like that I on the other hand for this particular deck I mean using eleven and a quarter inches for the Deaf reason being is I'm fully facing these steps okay so we're gonna be fully faced there's like of any open areas and I want no I don't want any stare notes on them I don't have old ladies walking up this deck and I don't want them to catch their feet as they're walking up also the steps these steps are at 8 inches high which most steps between 6 to 8 inches and since I'm at the higher end I also did not want over any overhang because that's same reason you want even tripping on it let's go back to what we're doing here at the moment you can see I was marking these steps it's really good to keep track of how many you've got on there and the last step we're still gonna mark the top part because we're gonna use that draw our line to get our perpendicular below below the top of the first the last step that I didn't make a lot of sense just just do it and just draw it up and then stretch out that line all the way across that's we're gonna cut it that's where it's gonna lay against the deck okay now we're coming back to the first step and we need to draw that perpendicular down also so we're to line it up and draw it downward get it perpendicular all right now let's see here where was I I explained to you guys the average depth is 10 1/2 inches which leaves 2 5/8 inch Stern it was overhead and I used 11 and 1/4 because I want to get flush and I'm using a facing so that's 1/8 inch between the two boards and a things between the last board and the facing so the water can drain ok height well that that's easy like I say between 6 a is a standard do double check with your local codes to make sure there's something some specific that they require but most of them give a range that's a pretty average range at least here in the US now how to figure that well hopefully you have a nice level flat cement pad that's not from your deck or wherever you're doing these if so that's great that makes it even easier if not you're gonna kind of take a little bit of guess on where our thing is going to hit do a lot of measuring anyway so let's assume you have a nice flat level cement pad underneath Harris isn't land on so you just measure from the ground to the top of the deck of course you have to decide is the top of the deck gonna be your last stair most people yes some people want the stairs to extrude extrude past the deck so the deck is not going to be the last step the stair risers that are going to contain all the steps all right so let's just play with a number let's say you measure from the ground atop the deck 65 inches well how many steps are you going to need well most of time there's some people will tell you there different ways to do this there it is I like to take a guess and how many steps you're gonna need and then just divide that out take 65 let's say you think you need about seven steps so you take the 65 divided by seven and I should I forget what the number is but that's close to ten inches and that's way too tall okay so let's keep what's closer so when you divide 65 by nine which would be giving you nine steps from the ground to the top of the deck because we're using the top of the deck as a last step it gives you seven point two two two repeating okay so that's what 65 inches divided by nine this so a seven inches is going to be pretty good and when you're point two two two so if you basically make each step at basically seven and a quarter starting with your you know Molly main steps and then when you make the bottom for the base step you can cut that a little bit shorter okay or a little bit taller if you need to it's always the easiest one to adjust it's your first step but you know like I said between six and eight inches so seven point two two is is right there in the middle that's good if you had 65 inches height now how far out are these steps gonna go so let's figure out how long of this two by twelve beam you need and if I didn't say to about twelve of beginning that's what you need is it is it two by twelve I've seen some people do it with a smaller beam like a two by ten it doesn't really give you the strength that I really should have but yes I guess you could get away with that but let's go back to the height no no I'm sorry the length up or this wartime well I'm Dean of track going back and adding the voiceover as harder than you think alright so let's go again with the sixty five minutes is high and we're gonna do seven steps okay so what we're gonna do is we know that the two boards together tightly or 11 inches one spring about that little eighth of an inch in between let's just track you with simple seven steps is what we're making which yes that does include the top of the deck this did I count that because that's where my measure off of so seven steps times 11 is 77 inches so measure from the base of the deck or whatever else we're making the stairs from and measure out 77 inches and that's where the steps should land and now you're going to measure up DAG lean to the deck now that will give us the measurement for the the beam that we need to buy and that's not the perfect measurement okay because we aren't going to have cut both sides at an angle which is I can actually add inches past that mark so if you measure nine and a half feet and you think which I don't think that's right for this I'm just throwing that out there and you're like awesome I get a 10 a 10 foot board no that's too close you need to go up to the 12 all right as you can see here we ran out of time I use a skill saw to cut up close to the V but not all the way through which means the back side of the blade didn't cut all the way through I like coming back with a sawzall to square that up so we're not cutting past makes the stair risers stronger guys I hope you pay attention to what I was doing what was jabberin hope this helps you out here we go another perfect matching stair riser and it's really simpler than you think it is to make so thanks again for joining me