Porch stairs

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gschimma

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Hi All, I have been restoring our decks and front porch. The front stairs had been painted but the paint was coming off so I was in the process of sanding these down. I thought about turning over the steps and as I was prying off the first step learned that the stairs weren't actually secured to the house and there was a fair amount of rot on the base that had been simply built on the ground. Needless to say, I've torn the whole thing down. I had thought about reusing the stringers but now I'm thinking I'll just start from scratch and just use them as a template. 4 steps, builder used 8 footlong 2X12"s. It appears that a 2X12" was used as a base and placed directly on the ground. It's rotten. We have a brick walkway coming up to the stairs, that I need to redo at some point. My thought it to pour a slab of concrete, hang the stringers with stringer connectors, reinforce the stringers with pressure treated something and bolt those into the concrete, and then use spaced 2X6's for the treads so water can drain. No idea how to do the posts and rail. Anything I'm missing or blatant mistakes? I've searched the interwebs and this seems to be fairly straight forward. One site suggested putting some sort of bolt in the concrete before it dries to attach the posts. A little worried that I'd mess up the location. Any websites, etc? Any companies that sell post/ rail kits? Wasn't impressed with what I found at the big box store. Thanks, in advance.
 
Do the stairs go right to the house or do you have a landing.
Can you post some pictures, that would be better than 30 questions.
 
If it was mine and others may disagree, I would build the whole stair/railing unit to be free standing. In fact I would build it in my garage or someplace with a good flat floor to work from and then move it in place as a single unit and have no attachment to the house. As it is now the porch is fixed and below the frost line assuming you live where it freezes. The house end will not move but the brick end can. I would dig out where it will sit and put in some gravel as a base.


With a stand alone you would have a pressure treated base to run your posts up to support the hand rail. I would make the whole thing from PT and put it together with treated deck screws


If in the future you need to get under the porch just slide the steps out and go in.
 
Interesting, hadn't thought about the ground freezing. We live in Maine so the ground definitely freezes. The stairs are eight feet wide so I don't think it'd be easy to slide the steps out once completed. Also seems like the stairs would have to attached to the house and likely code. Haven't read anywhere about not attaching. I'm planning to pour a small 2' X 9" slab to have the stringers sit on. Perhaps I won't attach the stairs to the slab. Most everything will be pressure treated. Thanks for your thoughts.
 
I see not much wrong with the set up usually the stringers would land on concrete But i have laid a ground treated 6x6 down like that too.
 
Instead of a slab which will float on the ground, perhaps a couple of sonotubes in the corners and a beam across to support the center stringers ( I doubt you'll want to dig for 5 sonotubes:eek:). If you decide to keep it attached to the porch, don't forget the z-flashing.
 
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