Step Lights

[Supershine]

Hi Everyone,

I would like some input for the following situation:

I would like to install step lights flush in a 10 inch thick concrete retaining wall about 7 feet high which will run beside concrete stairs leading to a basement entrance. I'm planning to install 5 - 2x4 junction boxes to which the lights will attach and will run the wiring through cor-line encased in the concrete.

The stairs will be poured after the retaining wall so I need to figure out how to get the junction boxes in the right positions without having the actual stairs as a reference.

I've attached a couple of pictures. Any advice will be very helpful.

Thanks!

 

[nealtw]

You need to figure the run and rise of the stairs, where that starts and where it ends. Once you have the panels up that face the stairs. On the concrete side of the panels you can draw out the stairs on the panels with a level and a square. If you make nice dark lines with a pencil lines often show up on the concrete when you strip the forms.
Do you need help with the rize and run?

 

[Supershine]

Yes, I could use some help with the rise and the run. More importantly, are there any details or points I'm likely to overlook the first time I do something like this?

For example, what's the best way to fasten the boxes to the inside of the forms - screws or nails?

Thanks.

 

[bud16415]

For a comfortable set of stairs that fit the human anatomy, the rise plus the run for each step should equal close to 18 inches. In other words if you want 8” of rise you should have 10” of run. A very easy climb would be something like 6” rise 12” run and a tougher climb would be 9” and 9”.

Take your total elevation change and the length you have for the total run and start working with the numbers. Say you had 96” of rise you divide by 8” and come up with 12 steps. That’s an easy one as it comes out even. You may end up with some number that’s not a whole number like 12 and then you round that off and divide that number into the total rise and see what you would get for individual rise subtract that from 18 to get what your run per step will be. And then find out the total run and see how that looks in your design.

I normally do several iterations until I find a combination that best suits the need of the stairs. Stairs going to a seldom used attic might uses a steeper combination than say the main stairs you use a lot.

Once you know what you want then you need to make a to scale drawing and from that determine where the lights go. once you know their location you can place them without the need of the stairs for reference and when the stairs go in later they will be located perfect.

 

[nealtw]

The lights will be made for this, so pick them up first and see what they say for height and installation instructions.
The landing at the bottom should have a level about an inch below the floor level inside the basement with a drain. The landing should have a slope of 1/4" per ft. to the drain.
So you have to figure out drain placement, length of landing and figure the slope and keep in mind it alway wants to be lower than the inside floor.

All that is just for finding the bottom starting point for the first riser.

The upper landing or sidewalk should be about 6 to 8 inches below the siding on the house or lower to fit the landscaping.

So once you have those two elevation, the measurements between is the rise, lets say it turns out to be 100 inches.

The biggest riser you can have is 8 inches so we devide the rise by 8 and in this case you get 12.5.

That dosn't work so you round up that answer to 13 and divide that into the rise, so you get an answer like 7--- and we can help you convert that to fractions

We try to keep the run of the stairs right around 11 inches plus or minus 1/2 inch.

That can be affected by landscaping or in your case the length or the retaining wall.

There is a lot to figure out before you do anything but keep in mind that there is no such things as perfection.

This is for layout when you have those measurements, there are cheats to make them drain and more comfortable to walk on.

 

[beachguy005]

I would also suggest that you get a couple of extra fixtures and/or parts to have on hand as spares. The thing about that type of lighting is it always looks great when you first install them. A few years down the road and the fixtures are discontinued by the manufacturer you may not find a compatible fixture to fit inside that cast hole.

 

[Supershine]

Ok, this all makes sense. Once the stairs are drawn on the forms I can install the boxes. Assuming everything is accurate, the stairs can be installed later in reference to the boxes and everything should look good.

Neal, what did you mean when you said there are cheats to make them drain and more comfortable to walk on?

Beachguy, extra fixtures are a good idea, but these are quite expensive. The cheapest ones I could find are about $70 each. There are alot of options for lights that fit right into standard size junction boxes so maybe I'll take my chances and hope nothing goes wrong.

 

[nealtw]

If you draw your lines on the panel and you use a dark pencil, those lines will be on the wall when you strip the panels.
If the steps are short like 10" you can tilt the riser in to make them look better.
Have you looked at the math and figured out your steps? I was thinking the stairs will be beside the house, yes no?

 

[Supershine]

Yes, the stairs will run along the side of the house.

I'm having difficulty figuring out how I'm going to draw the stairs on the inside of the forms. The forms are 4' X 8' and they are being placed vertically. The outline of the stairs will span a little more than 2 forms with the bottom of the stairs starting part way on the third form.

If I know my starting point and ending point how do I actually draw the lines on the form. If we put up the forms there is no way we can get in to draw the lines.

I was thinking of putting in the forms and then removing the middle full form and drawing a chalk line across the top corners of each step and marking each corner or do I draw out each step with a level once I know the exact measurement of each step?

If you could provide detailed instructions, a link, or a video, I would be eternally grateful!

Oh, and here's a rendering I was playing around with this morning.

Thanks!

 

[bud16415]

I’m still a little confused. You are just pouring the wall tomorrow, is that correct?

When you made your layout to scale on a drawing board or on a computer you have your wall shown and the layout of your stairs shown in relationship to where the wall starts and stops. You then placed your lights on the layout in relation to the steps where you think you want them.


Now you know where the lights are in relation to the wall the steps no longer need to be thought about. It looks like you have decided on 5 lights so you need 10 dimensions is all, to locate the lights. Five different heights and five different right to left dimensions will give you the center of each fixture.
Depending on what end the power will be coming from you I would start on that end and locate the boxes as you go across. We don’t know what kind of boxes and anchors you will use but you could drill a hole at each of the five locations and then something on the inside reference off the hole to secure the box and conduit. I’m picturing a wood block that fits the inside of the box and attaches to the box and then a couple screws to hold the block to the form. When you strip the forms you pull those screws and the blocks stay in the light box.

Do you have it figured out how you are going to do the pour and will you have the equipment needed to vibrate it and such? Are you pumping it in? Is there a footing to this wall? Is there rebar in the wall?

 

[Supershine]

Ok, let me clarify a little. The drawings were done by an engineer, but the lights were not included. They are a last minute idea I had.

I have a contractor doing most of the work and they are doing an outstanding job, but they have never done step lights. Also, I have a friend/electrician helping with the step lights which he has done many times, but he always works from an outline of the steps the foreman has placed on his construction sites, usually commercial.

There is a 6 inch thick concrete pad spanning the entire length of the project which also acts as a footing and the exterior floor where the drain is located and the cold room floor. The space between the underside of the stairs and the concrete pad will be filled with crushed stone.

Yes, we are pouring the concrete tomorrow or the day after. The rebar is in and we will pour with wheel barrows from a concrete truck. The concrete pad has already been poured and the stairs and slab above the cold room will be poured in the next week or two.

The boxes will be attached directly to the inside of the forms with smooth finish nails nailed from inside the form out and they will be wrapped in Saran Wrap to keep the concrete from going in the holes. The boxes will be linked by cor-line and the power will come from the lowest step light.

Here are some pictures and my questions will follow in the next reply in a couple of minutes.

 

[bud16415]

So the engineer has laid out the stairs already and his drawings will show the rise and run and such. There is nothing to think about their then. His drawings if good enough to form and build the steps will have all the information you need to place the boxes. You are just going to reference whatever dimensions he shows there and add the difference to where you want your light centered.

With the boxes you plan on using I wouldn’t nail them on I would use the tapped holes where the light attaches and drill two holes in the form from the outside at that spacing working off the center point of the box up and down and then attach them with machine screws. That will pull them up tight to the form. I wouldn’t bother with wrapping the boxes but you can if you want.
I would just put some tape over the holes.

 

[Supershine]

So once the first box is located all I have to do is measure horizontally twice the tread because they are going on every other step and twice the rise to find the location of the next box. Is that right?

But some of those measurements will span across forms. Can I do this with the forms removed?

 

[bud16415]

That’s correct.
Sure if you have to say measure over 20 inches and the form ends at 15 just go 5 over on the next form to make 20. As long as you know that all the forms bottoms are in a common line.

I think I would put the forms up temporally mark all the locations and then take them down putting them back up one at a time. You can have the boxes mounted and some of the conduit and all you will need to do is the connections where the conduit crosses the forms.

 

[bud16415]

Keep in mind I’m not a professional concrete installer. There are others on the forum that do this full time and may have additional suggestions. I am sometimes involved in designing industrial concrete forms for special pours and have to try and think from the inside out when building the forms and getting everything we need inside before the truck shows up and then get the forms back off after the truck leaves.

 

[Supershine]

The engineer showed some general information about the steps, but not the exact rise and tread. He left that for the contractor to figure out on site which he will have no problem doing. It just transferring that information to the forms which is causing a little difficulty.

Thanks for all your advice Bud. I'll pass it on to everyone else and with a little luck we'll get it right.

 

[bud16415]

Good luck.

It’s a pretty basic project you have going on, I’m surprised there wasn’t details for exactly what the stairs would be. In general when you hire someone to do a design the idea is with the design you will save more in labor than the design cost you and things will in the end be what you contracted for. I’m sure most good contractors can lay out a set of stairs. But having him do that on the job is wasting time when he should be building something and it’s also allowing the introduction of you getting something you didn’t expect and the contractor will say well it wasn’t spelled out in the plans so I did the best I could. I also know why the engineer didn’t make specifics as he most likely didn’t have all the grade details nailed down so it is a wait and see approach and without something like these lights it really wouldn’t matter where the top ends up within reason as it is to be compensated in the stair rise. Now you come along and want to add lights that you wish to correspond with the stairs and they are non-descript.

I once (long time ago) designed a house and shopped around for quotes with several contractors. Half of them asked me to do design work for them as the level of detail I provided made their job very easy. The other half of them wouldn’t quote it as they said we don’t work to plans like that we just want a general idea and we know how to build it. I don’t think things have changed much over time.

 

[nealtw]

When the one side of the panel is up, the one facing the stairs. You mark your starting point and ending point, do your math, draw the lines with a level and sqaure.
What I have seen with the boxes is foam faced plastic with plastic flexable conduit tied to the rebar to keep it in place.

I think placing the lights over the stairs in perfect location is too tricky. If you figure the tread and rise you can measure the angle that would be and draw a line on the panels at that angle 20 inches above where the stairs will be, devide that line by six and you have placement for five lights

 

[bud16415]

That’s another way to do it just random evenly spaced.

As the log hewer used to say, “let the chips fall as they may”.

 

[nealtw]

That’s another way to do it just random evenly spaced.

As the log hewer used to say, “let the chips fall as they may”.

Let the light fall by the way. As long as the angle is right, Stairs start a little higher or lower won't matter. I think most times the put lights into the risers but that;s a lot more lights.