How to Build Perfect Stairs (Fast, Accurate & Squeak-Free)

0:01 In this video, I'm going to show you how to calculate stairs. Some tips and tricks to using the calculator. We want these to be just dead money perfect, but we don't want to take a long time to do this. Hey, time's valuable. Maximize the efficiency without losing any quality. In fact, we're going to improve the quality. All right, so the first thing I need to know for stairs is my total rise. And ideally, that is finished floor to finished floor. In my case, I have hardwood on the main floor, which is 3/4. Upstairs, I have carpet and pad, which is 3/4. So, this is really easy. I don't have to account for that or there's no there's no difference. So, I just need my floor to floor measurement. So, I have from the top of my rim to my subfloor 118 and 5/8, but I know I'm going to have 3/4 in subfloor up above. So, I need to add that. So, 118 and 5/8

0:51 plus 3/4 119 and 3/8. That is the rise that I will divide out to get equal stairs all the way up. 119 and 3/8. I know a guy that forgets these things. 119 and 3/8. 119 and 38. 119 and 38. There's a nail. Okay, let's take a look at the plans because I need to know how many rises do I have total on the second floor plan. It shows that I have 16 rises total, and that includes one right here on the landing. Now, I'm going to go ahead and draw that. This is how I was taught, and it doesn't steer me wrong. So, 16 rises and 16 treads.

1:41 I think that's 16. 1 2 >> 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 >> 15 16. So, I counted wrong. So that upper, we're just going to call that floor. And of course, we have the bottom. That is the floor. Now, my total was 119 and 3/8. And that is from the top of the floor down to here. So, we're going to divide that by 16. I think it was 119. Yeah. 119 and 38. Always double check yourself twice. So 119 and 3/8 divided by 16 is a 7 and 7/16 riser riser. And we're going to go with a 10-in tread. I have to figure out where my two landings are. So if I look at this guy

2:28 on the plan, I have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Number eight is the platform itself. So 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Number eight is the platform. So let's just draw this like this. That means that number nine is the half platform. So I'm going to draw this like that.

3:14 What a man. What a man. What a man. >> What a mighty mighty good man. Now I actually know what each stair stringer is going to look like. So I mean that is just a thing of beauty. Let's go. P for platform, S for step. I don't know. It's a box step. So now I know I have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 on the lower set. 1 2 3 4 5 6 on the upper set. One thing that gets people super confused about stairs is we have a 7 and 7/16 rise. So that is this total height, right? Divided by 16th gives me exactly 7 and 7/16. We want them all to be the same. One, it's a craftsmanship thing and two, it's a safety thing.

4:01 However, I still need to add tread material and riser material. So, I have to make adjustments to these. And I'll show you how. But let's just explain the theory. If I go and I add a tread on top, that means that the 7 and 7/16 is now too tall. So, to adjust for that, whatever this thickness is, I just subtract off the bottom. That lowers this whole set, but then I add that back onto each of them. So up here that's 7 and 7/16. But if I subtract let's say 3/4 for the tread, well now I'm 7 and 7/16 plus 3/4. But when I add my tread back on, then [music] that gives me the exactly 7 and 7/16. Same thing with the riser. If I add riser material, which I like to use 2 by, so that's inch and a half. My tread is now an inch and a half

4:48 too big. So what I do is I take that off of the back. That takes this whole assembly and slides it back. So technically when I cut my stringer, this isn't going to be 10 inches. It's going to be eight and a half. But then when I add the inch and a half back on, I get back to my 10. I have three stringers per set of stairs. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to screw these together so that as I go, whatever I cut ends up cutting more than one at a time, and it scores the third. Now, the trick to this is not putting the screw where ultimately you're going to have to move it. Looks like I put that screw right in my way. I said not to do that. So, I want to be on this edge away from me because I'm going to be cutting on the edge closest to me. I want the bottoms to be nice and flush

5:35 cuz that's going to receive drywall on the underside. So, this is just acting as a clamp. And because these are dead straight, normally with 2x12, I have crowns to manage. I don't have any crowns to manage here. So, I can put the screws relatively close together. [snorts] And I want to make sure that's flush. So these three LVL's are going to be the stair stringers. They correspond to this. That is the stair stringer. But what I need to do is I need to cut out

6:21 the rise and the run or the riser and the tread. So, let me show you how I'm going to do that. I'm going to lay out those intersections or points. So, we're going to go back to the calculator. 119 and 3/8 is my total height divided by 16 risers or stairs. 7 and 716 is my riser height. If I make that the rise 10 in run for the tread diagonal was 12 1/2. I'm going to save that by hitting M plus. So what I'm going to do and this allows me to have no accumulated error. There is 12 and a half plus recall M plus 24 and 1516 37 and 716 49 and 1516

7:09 and 38 74 and 787 and 516 99 and 1316. What this does is by the calculator keeping track of really the decimal places, there's no accumulated error. 112 and 516. There's a couple ways you could do this. One, you could just cut a piece of material that is 7 and 7/16 and 10. That's called a pitch block. And we could just adjust this as we go. If you have a rafter square, a lot of us were just taught to step off. Step off. So there's 10 and 7/16. We would mark this and just step as we go. That works great. The only thing is is you have the thickness of your pencil. And so the more stairs you have, the longer essentially it gets when you accumulate

7:56 all of the air. So what I like to do is use my Martinez stair gauges. And I'm going to set this 1/16th less. So instead of 10, 9, and 15/16, instead of 7 and 7, I'm going to go 7 and 38. That's going to adjust for the thickness of my pencil. And then I just set the gauge there. 7 and 38, 9 and 15/16, 7 and 38. Verify. So, basically what's going to happen is my pencil is going to come out right on my my marks. So, I'm going to start with number one. And essentially, because I already have the points laid out, I'm not going to accumulate any error. And I basically just [snorts] like reset at every single one of those intersections.

8:43 Okay. By the way, this is the Holtforce pencil. I really like this. Verify. So, I always order the material at least a foot longer on each side, just in case something happens as it's stored, somebody drives over it. So, I'm going to call this my riser number one. That corresponds to riser number one here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. And then seven, the top, of course, is going to be horizontal for the tread. So, 1 2 3 4 5 6. Number seven. That is my tread. Just going to circle that. Use this guy as a straight edge. Now, while I'm here at the top, remember I'm going to add riser material. I'm going to use 2x8 that is inch and a half thick. So, that means I need to subtract this off the back of the top of the stair.

9:32 Circle that. Because if I then added a riser from my original mark, I'm now 11 and 1/2 for my tread, but the rest of them would be 10. Because this is inch and 1/2, I have to take that off the back of this first one at the top. slide the whole assembly back. Then this amount right here that I'm shortening it, just think of it as I'm adding that all back onto each one. When I do with the risers at the bottom, it's very similar. I'm going to trace through the bottom. This represents landing on the subfloor. I'm going to use 3/4 in thick material for my treads. Looks like I put that screw right in my way. I said not to do that. I did it.

10:17 >> [snorts] >> So, it's the same thing. Just think about this amount I'm taking out, I'm putting back here by virtue of having treads. If I didn't do that, then that means this first one is going to be taller than all of the rest because the rest will be 3/4 plus 3/4 plus 3/4. So, I want to cut this one and get rid of that material. Double check yourself twice. One, two, three, four, five, six. Number seven is my tread. So, I'm going to cut this line and that line. I'm going to cut this line and that line. And we're going to start at the very beginning. If you were to build a set of stairs for yourself, these are the

11:03 things you have to know. So, number one, what do you use for material? Historically, we have used 2 by12. Now, ideally, you want to actually go to the store or the lumber yard and visually inspect what you're ordering. We don't often get to do that. So, when I spec this on my lumber list to the lumber yard, I tell our lumber salesman, I want the prettiest 2x12 you have in 12t, 14, 16t lengths, 10 foot, whatever the lengths are. And then I double that because likely whoever is in the yard does not look at this piece of wood the way I need to look at it as the person cutting the stairs. Specifically 2x12 is good. It gives us enough depth keeping in mind that we're going to cut out triangles. But what I was taught from

11:48 day one is you want to make sure that you don't have a running crack right down the 2x12. This one does. This is going to become the stair landing. So it's okay. But if I start cutting out triangles, they're going to break off. This is a number two. You could order number one. You could order select structural. That would improve your chances. Look at the size of this knot. And I have a crack that is just running right down the middle of this. So, I know that if I cut these into stair stringers, the triangles are going to break off and I'm going to be extremely frustrated. Ask me how I know. So, I don't really recommend that you use 2x12 unless you're going to take the time to visually inspect and hand select those pieces or you trust the yard guys. Instead, this is inch and 3/4 by 11 and

12:35 7/8 PWT LVL. So, LVL is very uniform. I know I will show you this that if I put these three pieces on edge, they are identical heights. In fact, I can do you one better. I have six pieces that are perfectly the same depth. LVL [snorts] is laminated veneer lumber. I got to go visit manufacturing. So, basically those veneers which are selected. So, these are the best quality veneers that come out of the logs. Then they are glued up and pressed together. And these are made in 60 ft plus so that by the time they get cut down to even lengths, there's not really any waste left over. Because it's an engineered wood product, we don't have the defects that we have in

13:21 saw lumber like knots. I don't have a grain running through this because it didn't come out of a single tree, you know, cut however it might have been cut. It's inch and 3/4 thick, 11 and 7/8. Another advantage is maybe for strength and span, I want to go with 14 in deep so that I get even more stiffness out of those stair stringers. I can do that with LVL. I can't really do that with saw and lumber. You can find 2x14 [laughter] by the time you factor the cost and the quality. I mean, think about the tree that that needs to come out of. This bad boy is a 2.0 E. I mean, this for all intents and purposes, this is a beam. Then what we're going to do is we're going to take out the rise and the run. We're going to take out all of those triangles and we're left with a very, very strong set of stairs. Another advantage is inch and 3/4. I have just a little bit more room that when I'm fastening the risers and treads, I have

14:08 a better glue surface and I have more to grab with those nails. I'm less likely to shine out. One thing too that's a negative on saw lumber is that when you actually go to install the risers and treads sometimes, but because of the way we've cut it, that whole riser or that whole tread is basically a knot and when your nail goes into it, it either blows out or the nail curls out. So, while it's true that saun lumber is less money than the lvl, the total installed cost and service life, factoring that in of the of the stairs, you're going to come out ahead with lvl. It's going to be faster to cut and build. It's more uniform. A lot of times what happens with saw and lumber is that by the time we cut the rise and run out, when you go to nail the riser or tread, maybe all that's left is that giant knot and the nail just blows it just blows the knot out or it curls out. You can avoid all

14:53 of that hassle by just going with an engineered wood product like the PWT LVL. Here's another way to look at it when you're thinking about the expense of the stairs. How long is that stairway going to be in service? Likely the life of the structure. If we're building this house to have a 100year plus, if you maintain it properly, lifespan. So, if my stairs cost $100 more in materials averaged over a hundred years, do I really care if it's $500 more in materials? So, that's one way to look at it is these stairs get a lot of traffic. They need to be safe. They need to be strong. And they need to last the life of the house. Pro tip for you. Cutting your stair stringers to minimize the effort and increase the accuracy. By laying them all three on top and cutting through my layout marks, I cut through two and I score the bottom one. Because

15:39 I've screwed them together, I can pull the top one off. Screw through the same holes on the bottom two. Cut it again with that 10 and 1/4 in saw. And then all I have to do is connect the dots with the jigsaw. Now it's a lot easier on the first one than it is on the second. And really technically it gets harder on the second, a little bit harder on the third. This way they are all basically as identical as we're going to get them. It's also very efficient. So who said being fast is being sloppy? In order for this to work well, you have to take good care of your tools. [screaming] That 10 and 1/4 in saw needs to be able to cut square. You know, imagine it just goes off to the side. will not run out again. The jigsaw, same thing. I like to use these screws. They're bas they're made for deck ledgers. By attaching the outside stringers to the walls, now they are

16:25 just locked tight. Think of this as building a system. You can't use 2x8s for treads. Exacto. We are using them for riser. Since the stringers are already laid out, just match that layout to the very bottom riser. Pro tip, don't glue the stringer. Glue the riser. This is Advantex subfloor adhesive polyurethane foam to gel. It is stronger than your mother's love for you, but not stronger than my mother's love for me. Notice that those are PWT LVL's for the stair stringers. They are not going to crack, warp, or twist on me like 2x12 can. Translation: bomber stairs, especially once everything is glued and nailed with 3-in ring shank nails. Make sure that bottom stringer is on layout. To keep those stringers nice and straight, do the same

17:11 thing in the middle on longer runs. The riser is 7 and 7/16. The 2x8 is 7 and 1/4. You know what that means? I don't have to rip the risers. There will be a small gap at the bottom, but that doesn't matter. Since I am correct-handed, I tend to work from right to left. Do the outside stringers first, flushing up the top, and then go ahead and nail the middle. Notice the 1x4 on the side of the stringer. Since we know for sure that this stair is not going to get a skirt, that 1x4 holds the stringers off so that the drywallers can just slip their drywall back without having to make any funky cuts. No, that is not grape jelly. That is the Advantex subfloor adhesive. Squeak-free stairs mean no call backs and it's easier for your kids to sneak out at night. Ain't nobody want squeaks. I don't actually know if this step is necessary, but I was taught to glue the back of the treads so that where that meets the riser, we have a nice solid bond. The

17:58 next step is install the Advantex subfloor adhesive polyurethane foam to gel over the stringers, the pressure blocks at the top, as well as all of the 2x8 risers. Why the 2x8 risers? Often you'll see that the riser material is the same as the tread material, which is the same as the subfloor. And it makes good sense to use up the scrap. I prefer to use 2x8 for two reasons. Number one, it's just a lot stronger, and as people go up and down the stairs, it's going to provide a stiffness that is going to prevent squeaks due to deflection over the life of the stairs. The second is it is a greater area for me to nail to. Stairs get a lot of use. We want these things to be squeak free. You will notice that that is PWT LVL stair stringer. So that's inch and 3/4 wide, which also is a slightly larger nailing surface. Slow down a little bit and be

18:44 accurate with nail placement. We don't want nails too close to the edge or it can just blow out the Lvl. For stairs, the same as the subfloor, I want to use the Passload Tetragrip nail. This nail is tenacious. Frankly, we can't pull them without popping the heads right off of them. It's a specially designed deformed fastener to eliminate squeaks. And you might be thinking, "Hey, Big T, are you trying to match those nails to the glue?" Well, I'm not. They just both happen to be kind of purple. To make sure that I nail that tread right into the center of the riser, I'm just going to go ahead and scribe a line. And then for the coup deross, nail that tread right to the riser between the stringers because this is right where people are going to walk up and down. This is a bomber way to build stairs. And there is what a floor framed in the balloon framed house looks like. I like to build the stairs before the sheathing. Why?

19:30 It's a little safer and a whole lot easier. So, just in case you're not that interested, we went we put that other stuff. Let's just get to it at the beginning of the video. Now, let's just do a top down view of what we've already talked about, but in a little bit more detail. You see how I can cut right up to the intersection of the risers and treads. Pull the screw out. Slide that one off. Put the screws right back through the exact same spot. Now, I just have to connect the dots. No need to scribe any of this stuff. Here's the thing. If you can back out of your parking spot using your mirrors, you can you can really eyeball a lot of this. Now, it's a 10 and a quarter inch saw, so it cuts pretty deep. But now, especially notice on number three. I didn't do this on the other set, but I elected to do it because I'm using the LVL is I just just followed that cut with the 7 and 1/4 in saw. I'm cleaning

20:16 up as I go. There's no rocket science to this. I think with LVL you would be perfectly within your rights and I would not call you a hack if you decided to overcut and let the pieces fall out. Another way to be efficient, save these. It looks bad on social media. I don't feel like dealing with the con comments. I don't do it because primarily because of that. Also, this is just the way I was taught and you know I'm just an old dog struggling to learn new habits. Now, here is just sped up footage of installing the risers and the treads. It's the same thing. You've already seen the first one. Here's the second one. Uninterrupted. Not changing camera angles. But that is a scribbing technique that every framer knows. Use your finger. Once you pinch that pencil, that's a hol force pencil. Just slide it right along. Cut it. We have to cut that

21:02 first one down because remember we dropped that. We're adding it to the top. It's not the full 3/4 being ripped out of it because what were we? 7 and 7/16. And that 2x8 is probably more like 7 and 316. locate everything. You see, I flipped that over just because it's probably not that real not that pretty. Now, the first time I tried using this glue for