|
| Three outside stairs are needed, two low ones (3 and 4 step) to the deck just outside two of the doors, and one long one (12 steps) heading downhill from the deck towards the garage. The small stringers are store-bought (Merx), but I'm making the large stringers. The east side landing was the hard one since it was on a slope. The stringers are too heavy to test fit, so I made a mock-up out of wood and used it to locate the landing and set its height. |
|
|
|
|
| First Stringer | Two Stringers | Three Stringers | West Side Landing |
|
|
|
|
| North Side Landing | East Side Started | East Side Landing | East Side Landing |
| Pour day! The weather was questionable-- supposed to turn bad, showers then rain sometime, but we went for it since it would be bad weather for another week. Started out great, thought we were done, then the rain came and the roof dumped onto the last landing right before it was broomed-- looked like it was ruined but my man Chris Gamache was able to save it. We were able do all the pours but one straight from the chute, the last was tractored over. Finishing around the set-in poles is a pain, will have to come back when its cured and grind down to match the rolled-over edges elsewhere. |
|
|
|
|
| Stormy Weather | Filling East Landing | Smoothed & Edged | Broom Finish |
|
|
|
|
| Filling North Landing | Screeding | Edging | Looks Good! |
|
|
||
| Edging West Landing | Emergency Tent |
| Stripped the forms. Unfortunately the tarps which we put over the landings to keep the untimely rain off marked up the surfaces. I wired brushed the hell out of them and they're OK now, but not glorious like before. Oh well, took a chance with the weather and missed it by that much. |
|
|
|
| West Landing Stripped | North Landing Stripped | East Landing Stripped |
| Got the long stringers back from being powdercoated in Medford, noone does it locally. They do a double coat, looks very nice-- much better than the store-bought ones (which come from China now, what doesn't). The deck beams are the usual knotty twisted stuff you get these days, so I had to chisel out plumb landings for the stringers to bolt to (only two shown, still need to do the center one). Landings are faced with a 50/50 mixture of mortar and sand, wetted to pancake batter consistency and troweled on, to fill the honeycomb and dress it up. |
|
|
|
|
| Stringers Powdercoated | Beams Plumbed | Landings Faced | North Landing Backfilled |
|
|
||
| East Landing Backfilled | West Landing Backfilled |
| The long stringers were a pretty good fit, but needed final adjusting. In order to level the treads, I needed to rotate the stringers down; so, instead of sitting on a 2×8 pressure treated sill, they sit on ¼" solid rubber. That means the top flange was rotated out more than expected, so a tapered shim went between the top flange and the deck beam. The heels hang off the slab a bit now, but that's no problem. |
|
|
| Stringers Mounted | Stringers Mounted |
| 5/4 × 6" Ipe treads installed w/#10 SS Phillips oval-head machine screws w/washers and nylocks. Located each tread first then used pens and pencil stubs to mark hole locations from the bottom. Drill press, countersink, everything fit no problem. Bottom plank fits around railing end-posts; used cardboard templates to make a pattern for the cut-outs then jigsawed with a carbine-tipped Hardi blade and finished/adjusted on a spindle sander. |
|
|
|
| Ipe Treads Mounted | Finished Stairs | Closeup of Tread |
| I wasn't going to install the north side stairs yet since they will be in the way of the siding, but... I'll be doing the north side siding last, and in the meantime they are much nicer to use than the stack of pallets and rickety stairs steps. |
|
| North Side Stairs |