You've given me the details and correct steps for calculating my rise and taken the mystery out of building my stairs. YES! Do more videos!! Thank you!!
I think this video is amazing! 1. You took the time to explain everything thoroughly. 2. You actually had a new trick for me to learn. 3. On the job lesson was intense. I felt as thought I was on the job site with you. 4. I would love to see you do more videos like these. You also inspire me to make one of my own. 5. I do however think you hold your thumb dangerously close to the saw. I always keep my finger on the guard handle told start my cuts. I could never see myself doing what you did there. 7. Please on your next video tell us what part of the country you build in. 8. Again I loved, and enjoyed the video.
Just the information and video I was looking for. It made this portion of my basement remodel very easy to understand and execute. Thanks for providing your knowledge and instruction with such clarity in both the verbal and video aspect. Take care.
UA-cam is recommending your video so I got it I’m staring Stoller never learned how to calculate them thanks for sharing look forward to hearing from you keep up the good work God bless Ken
Great job I dont build many stairs in my trade qhen I do it always takes me awhile to figure out u just simplified it for me thankx keep up the good work
easiest ive found is snap some lines for the stringers and or handraiI placement. wood or matel the thickness doesnt matter regarding measuring. generally i dont like steep stairs rather lower rises and wider treads. handrails should use a third rail system. Or "K" rail. This helps in case of falling down stair cases..
Very easy to understand and retain the information. Great visual made it easy to see just how it's applied in the field ... Suggest doing roof rafters on an average A frame home
Glad it was helpful. I will try to get a video going of hand cut rafters. Also thinking of doing a video to cover a truss over-build where two roof bodies intersect.
Nice video, A few things which you may wish to consider- Finish floor thickness at top and bottom needs to be addressed Tread material is 1 1/8", landings are 3/4"- adjustments need to be made. cumulative error in layout technique
Simple.After you have set out the risers & treads you mark another line inside those lines the same thickness as the risers & treads.Then you mark out the nosing on the treads which is added to the fronts x 1 inch or 25 mm.
@fellowboyable The run measurement is a code standard that cannot be changed at will. If you only had 48", the end of the stairs would probably protrude out past the wall a bit. You can build a return back to the wall in these cases so that it looks nice. It may also be possible to change you landing heights/ layout to move one of the rises to a different area of the staircase if you don't want to have it stick out past the corner.
Sorry to see that comment by irishslave51, I'm sure many find your videos very useful. There is a recent article on "This is carpentry" along with one I made at SeattleFineWoodwork ,relating to laying out stringers with a tape instead of sliding the framing square for cumulative error.
This is a challenging scenario. It is always best to have the top step of the upper stringer be an extension of floor so you have good attachment. If this is not possible, you will need to frame down your header so that you have sufficient material to connect your stringer to.
I'm seeing four stairs on your sketch where you say three...at 6:21 of this video... Other than that your concept is very easy to understand. Thank you for this post...
On a landing, the stairs can either be an extension of the landing (same level) or can be down one step, like you described at the header above. If you are concerned about the flooring length at the stairs if you make your top stair the same height as the landing, you could always build one side of the landing back relative to the other side so they matched. Bottom line is that there is a good deal of planning that goes into how you want your stairs to look before you ever start cutting.
Material difference between landing and stringer is allowed for in placement of landing and adjustment of bottom of stringer during layout on stringer. There is no error.
Ok, that's kind of what I thought, but I guess I was hoping for a solution that I hadn't figured. So basically If planning a stair hole opening that's 48" x 96", then rough it out at about 58" x 96". Again, thanks for the vid and your quick responses..
We changed over in England. We changed over in the 70's. Being a plumber I am eternally grateful for that but they do say the old imperial system was better for advanced mathematics. Apparently.
the easy way is a construction master. it simplifies the process immensely. done hundreds of stairs round floating, spiral if it's possible I can frame it. get a construction master, they are about fifty dollars a Lowe's or twenty on line used.
20 rises gives a rise of 6.99375" per step. Most people would struggle to cut accurately to the 1/16th of an inch, which is .0625", which is 10 times more than the difference between the 7" rise we used and the calculated rise. Much more accurate than using a 7 1/4" rise for the calculated 7.36" - a difference of .112- nearly an 1/8th of an inch. If you wanted to use 19 rises, you should cut to 7 3/8".
Great video, thanks allot. However, you should mention to the audience to consider the thickness of the material that will be used for the runners and to substract it from the fianal calculation ( riser height). I'm attempting to construct my first set of stairs and ended up with a finished height of 8-11/8" risers. again for the video, but if you could find a way to include this step it would save someone allot of money and frustration.
If you don t like feet and inches make up your on conversions .the idea is that all individual rises are equal to one another from finish to finish floor along vertical line ,
HI, Thanks for the reply, and sorry if I was not clear. I wanted to know how would one hang a stringer on a stair hole header (i.e no pony wall to attach a ledger to) assuming the top step was one riser height lower with the flooring. Thanks again...
I understand the whole process that you explained, and the fact that you subtracted the tread thickness from the bottom riser. My question is, what about the thickness of the flooring material that goes over the sub floor? Don't you also have to allow for that so that the bottom riser is not too short, and at the the top so the top riser is not too high?
Yes, you have to account for floor covering thickness differences. In the example in the video, the floor covering on the lower level, stairs, and upper level was the same, so no adjustments needed to be made.
The top of the landing including the subfloor is 42" you do have tk calculate for the subfloor. In most cases you'll use 3/4" tongue and groove so the top of the landing just framed is 41 1/4"
I have two sets of stairs. The total rise is 103" the total run is 110.5". I plan on using 7.875 as my individual rise. Giving me 13 risers and 12 treads. My problem is with 12 treads at 10" each I'm now at 120", 9.5" over my total run. How do I compensate?
so i understand that you make the total run 50'' that way you get a 10'' run per tread but shouldn't the other runs in the following 2 flights of stairs be the same? which most likely won't work out or is only the rise important to keep the same?
Great video. Hope this doesn't sound to stupid? When using a landing which has the ability to fasten a ledger (Pony wall double top plates), as an example opposed to a single flight where the stringer needs to fasten to the bottom of the stair hole header, should the last tread be an extension of the floor? If so, what to do when there is a balcony involved? (the flooring would be longer by the stairs, then the rest of the floor?) Not knocking your video, just asking what to do here? Thanks
You would cut your entire stringer with the 7" rise and then cut the tread thickness off the bottom of the riser so that the entire riser is lowered. I go over this in Part 2 of the series.
why is it that when i divided 139.875 by 7 it gave me 19.98....would'nt i just use that number to be more accurate i mean i would have got a rise of 71/4 cause i divide my 139.875 by 19 which gives me 7.36
Now make this video using the metric system. As an American, I speak with a qualified opinion when I say that inches suck. Unfortunately every tool or piece of wood you buy in the states is measured with the imperial system.
I really enjoyed this 3-part teaching series. I noticed you're still swinging a Douglass :-( ...it's time for a 14oz Stiletto. I swung a Douglass for many years; but when I switched over to a Stiletto, the difference was night & day; I could never go back to a Douglass again. I noticed you're using LVL's for your stringers. Is that code in your area? We only use microlamms on commercial wood-frame jobs. Most framers in my area (Wichita, KS) use 2X12s; but I prefer the 2X12X16 Timberstrands myself. I thought I was the only one who didn't over-cut my stringers. Almost everyone I know does...it drives me CRAZY!!
Robert Hammond I like the Douglas because of the inverted dimples and being able to swap a handle with an allen wrench. I would like a lighter option, but haven't investigated to see if I can get the same head, yet lighter. For the job in the videos the engineer called out the LVLs. Normally we are 2x12 out here. Glad you enjoyed the vids. I'm in the process of make some more right now.
That was an estimation based on the overall ht. 7 inches is a good stair height average. Take your overall rise and divide by 7 and that will tell you approx how many stairs you will need. Then turn around and divide your overall rise by the number of stairs you came up with and that will give you the exact rise per stair.
@@makenabuilt Thank you for the quick reply. From your explanation I understand how to calculate the number of rises, but how do you calculate the number of treads? Would you simply devide the total run by 10?
@@300saj "Treads" are a function of how many rises you need. Then your run will be approx 10" time the number of rises you need. Draw yourself a sketch of what your set of stairs will look like and it will make it easier to visualize.
Hello Sir. My name is Arodi you are good about explaining, but I need help about building a stairs. The opening is 82 inches wide x 87 inches of length. The height is 92 and 3/4 and the bottom of the ceiling is 80. I did my calculation and i need 13 risers but i dont know how to know if im doing right about the landing. Thank you
From finish floor to finish floor it was 139.75 / 7. Landings are just extra deep treads. So you end up with 20- 7" risers and 17- 10" treads and 2- landings.
Where did the 109.75 come from? I'm trying to do the math for a 10' ceiling with 16" joists above. Is 109.75 for an 8' ceiling + floor joists and flooring?
I'm not able to go back and watch the video right now to see where that number came from but it was either my example number, or the actual number of the house that was being built in the second two videos. In your case, your dimension will be from the top of the deck where you are trying to get up to to the floor where you are leaving from
hi sir u r very good in ur calculation this is for strait stairs what about the carved stairs how we can calculate the number of stairs for the hight of the first floor is 3.4 mtr
I have looked at a lot of material on framing, this guy knows what he is doing and explains it very clearly. Nice Job.
That is a detailed explanation on how to figure out the first steps of building a stair stringer!!!!
Glad it helpdd@
I did this today and used the 2 framing square method. Thanks for your video, my employer was very impressed with my finished product.
Brother didn't miss a beat; he rocked it! Good job Tory!
You've given me the details and correct steps for calculating my rise and taken the mystery out of building my stairs. YES! Do more videos!! Thank you!!
Thank you for showing the stair frame build; was very informative, had been around builders for years, you made it straight forward for a beginner.
Thank you so much. I watched parts 2 and 3 first and came back to part 1. Invaluable.
Glad the videos helped! Good luck with your project.
I've used this video multiple times to layout stairs. It's one of the best institutional out there.
I think this video is amazing!
1. You took the time to explain everything thoroughly.
2. You actually had a new trick for me to learn.
3. On the job lesson was intense. I felt as thought I was on the job site with you.
4. I would love to see you do more videos like these. You also inspire me to make one of my own.
5. I do however think you hold your thumb dangerously close to the saw. I always keep my finger on the guard handle told start my cuts. I could never see myself doing what you did there.
7. Please on your next video tell us what part of the country you build in.
8. Again I loved, and enjoyed the video.
This is still my favorite stair construction.
Thank you very much! Glad it helps!
Thank you!! I have a test on this tomorrow morning and no one online explained this better than you
This is very clear & straight-forward. Thank you for taking time to make this.
Just the information and video I was looking for. It made this portion of my basement remodel very easy to understand and execute. Thanks for providing your knowledge and instruction with such clarity in both the verbal and video aspect. Take care.
I have always been baffled by how to calculate stairs. You made it so easy to learn. Thanks so much!
UA-cam is recommending your video so I got it I’m staring Stoller never learned how to calculate them thanks for sharing look forward to hearing from you keep up the good work God bless Ken
Thanks Tory, you are a cool instructor and communicate very well. Hope to see more vids from you and your framing friends
Great job I dont build many stairs in my trade qhen I do it always takes me awhile to figure out u just simplified it for me thankx keep up the good work
Very nice video! Finally somebody that can explain stair calculations for the average guy to understand.
👍
1st time viewing and I found the instructions easy to follow.
as a stair builder I would advise anybody without professional experience to follow this guys advice
Here in 2021. Thank you for this easy to follow explanation.
Awesome tutorial!
Thanks for simplifying this process.
Thanks for posting this. . I will be going to college this September for Carpentry and it is very helpful. I subscribed.
Very informative, i'm learning this now in school, helps to keep it fresh,,,thanks, Don.
easiest ive found is snap some lines for the stringers and or handraiI placement. wood or matel the thickness doesnt matter regarding measuring. generally i dont like steep stairs rather lower rises and wider treads. handrails should use a third rail system. Or "K" rail. This helps in case of falling down stair cases..
Great information. Thanks for the video. Very clear and easy to understand.
Great job Tory !! My math skills are very basic and you made it very easy to understand .Thanks a lot for video.
Thanks alot, been having a hard time getting our landings right. Now I know. Great
Very easy to understand and retain the information. Great visual made it easy to see just how it's applied in the field ... Suggest doing roof rafters on an average A frame home
Glad it was helpful. I will try to get a video going of hand cut rafters. Also thinking of doing a video to cover a truss over-build where two roof bodies intersect.
Great tutorial! Greatings from Lithuania
Very useful and clear and simple explanation. 👍
Great presentation. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
this was a very informing video. thank you.
same
No
Nice video,
A few things which you may wish to consider-
Finish floor thickness at top and bottom needs to be addressed
Tread material is 1 1/8", landings are 3/4"- adjustments need to be made.
cumulative error in layout technique
Simple.After you have set out the risers & treads you mark another line inside those lines the same thickness as the risers & treads.Then you mark out the nosing on the treads which is added to the fronts x 1 inch or 25 mm.
@fellowboyable The run measurement is a code standard that cannot be changed at will. If you only had 48", the end of the stairs would probably protrude out past the wall a bit. You can build a return back to the wall in these cases so that it looks nice. It may also be possible to change you landing heights/ layout to move one of the rises to a different area of the staircase if you don't want to have it stick out past the corner.
Killer video, saves me alot of money making my own.
Calidad compa- sos bueno explicando me sirvió de gran ayuda tu explicación
You're a good teacher. Thanks!
Thanks for posting. Extremely well put-together video.
Thank you for the videos keep up the great work
Sorry to see that comment by irishslave51, I'm sure many find your videos very useful. There is a recent article on "This is carpentry" along with one I made at SeattleFineWoodwork ,relating to laying out stringers with a tape instead of sliding the framing square for cumulative error.
I never really appreciated metric until I watched this 😁
This is a challenging scenario. It is always best to have the top step of the upper stringer be an extension of floor so you have good attachment. If this is not possible, you will need to frame down your header so that you have sufficient material to connect your stringer to.
you are a gem, one in a million thanks
thank you for these videos you explained it wonderfully!
Great job. You taught this very well.
Hey man, you're great. Thanks for the video. Always wanted to know how to make stairs.
Thank you very much, your are very clear explanation the step of stairs calculation.
I'm seeing four stairs on your sketch where you say three...at 6:21 of this video...
Other than that your concept is very easy to understand.
Thank you for this post...
On a landing, the stairs can either be an extension of the landing (same level) or can be down one step, like you described at the header above. If you are concerned about the flooring length at the stairs if you make your top stair the same height as the landing, you could always build one side of the landing back relative to the other side so they matched. Bottom line is that there is a good deal of planning that goes into how you want your stairs to look before you ever start cutting.
Material difference between landing and stringer is allowed for in placement of landing and adjustment of bottom of stringer during layout on stringer. There is no error.
Great information, well splained and easy to understand.
Thank you for shering your knowlege.
Take care and happy 2013!
Ok, that's kind of what I thought, but I guess I was hoping for a solution that I hadn't figured. So basically If planning a stair hole opening that's 48" x 96", then rough it out at about 58" x 96".
Again, thanks for the vid and your quick responses..
We changed over in England. We changed over in the 70's. Being a plumber I am eternally grateful for that but they do say the old imperial system was better for advanced mathematics. Apparently.
the easy way is a construction master. it simplifies the process immensely. done hundreds of stairs round floating, spiral if it's possible I can frame it. get a construction master, they are about fifty dollars a Lowe's or twenty on line used.
Learn the math .. Construction Masters are for the mathematically challenged .. Try a scientific calculator from Wal-Mart
"It's simple, you just take crying baby and you divide by crying baby, and you get...... Crying baby".
20 rises gives a rise of 6.99375" per step. Most people would struggle to cut accurately to the 1/16th of an inch, which is .0625", which is 10 times more than the difference between the 7" rise we used and the calculated rise. Much more accurate than using a 7 1/4" rise for the calculated 7.36" - a difference of .112- nearly an 1/8th of an inch. If you wanted to use 19 rises, you should cut to 7 3/8".
Man, great set of videos! Thanks!
Excellent video my friend..Thank you
Thank you this is just what I needed.
Thanx man very informative. Learnt alot here
Nice
I may have missed this but how do you determine what width of board to start with, 10" or 12". Great build series, thanks.
When you have inches, you times inches by 25.4 = metric
Great video, thanks allot. However, you should mention to the audience to consider the thickness of the material that will be used for the runners and to substract it from the fianal calculation ( riser height). I'm attempting to construct my first set of stairs and ended up with a finished height of 8-11/8" risers. again for the video, but if you could find a way to include this step it would save someone allot of money and frustration.
very good explanation
If you don t like feet and inches make up your on conversions .the idea is that all individual rises are equal to one another from finish to finish floor along vertical line ,
what if you only had 48 inches from the corner of your hall not the 53 inches you do have? how long would your runs be ?
Thanks Man for doing that on paper for us not that bad
Good job buddy u explained verry well
HI,
Thanks for the reply, and sorry if I was not clear. I wanted to know how would one hang a stringer on a stair hole header (i.e no pony wall to attach a ledger to) assuming the top step was one riser height lower with the flooring.
Thanks again...
Did a good job explaining
I need help with my stairs ... I have a total run of 100" from the second floor to the exterior wall how can I calculate with a landing ???
good video,thank you for your time, how do I calculate for finishes from floor to my first riser
I understand the whole process that you explained, and the fact that you subtracted the tread thickness from the bottom riser. My question is, what about the thickness of the flooring material that goes over the sub floor? Don't you also have to allow for that so that the bottom riser is not too short, and at the the top so the top riser is not too high?
Yes, you have to account for floor covering thickness differences. In the example in the video, the floor covering on the lower level, stairs, and upper level was the same, so no adjustments needed to be made.
The top of the landing including the subfloor is 42" you do have tk calculate for the subfloor. In most cases you'll use 3/4" tongue and groove so the top of the landing just framed is 41 1/4"
Can you please show how to calculate spiral staircase?
I love the video but on the 139.875 and then divide by 20..why are you dividing by 20? where is this coming from.
Thanks man!it was very usefull,but I can not understand why
Great video thanks for sharing great job.
Can you do a rafter video? I look forward to learning that method as well.
I have two sets of stairs. The total rise is 103" the total run is 110.5". I plan on using 7.875 as my individual rise. Giving me 13 risers and 12 treads. My problem is with 12 treads at 10" each I'm now at 120", 9.5" over my total run. How do I compensate?
so i understand that you make the total run 50'' that way you get a 10'' run per tread but shouldn't the other runs in the following 2 flights of stairs be the same? which most likely won't work out or is only the rise important to keep the same?
Great video. Hope this doesn't sound to stupid? When using a landing which has the ability to fasten a ledger (Pony wall double top plates), as an example opposed to a single flight where the stringer needs to fasten to the bottom of the stair hole header, should the last tread be an extension of the floor? If so, what to do when there is a balcony involved? (the flooring would be longer by the stairs, then the rest of the floor?) Not knocking your video, just asking what to do here?
Thanks
You would cut your entire stringer with the 7" rise and then cut the tread thickness off the bottom of the riser so that the entire riser is lowered. I go over this in Part 2 of the series.
why is it that when i divided 139.875 by 7 it gave me 19.98....would'nt i just use that number to be more accurate i mean i would have got a rise of 71/4 cause i divide my 139.875 by 19 which gives me 7.36
that's very cool man great job thanks.
Sorry for the late response. Is this a straight run, or do you have a landing with a turn?
Now make this video using the metric system. As an American, I speak with a qualified opinion when I say that inches suck. Unfortunately every tool or piece of wood you buy in the states is measured with the imperial system.
When laying out the stringer how do you subtract for nosing and the riser thickness?
nice video --your the best
I really enjoyed this 3-part teaching series. I noticed you're still swinging a Douglass :-( ...it's time for a 14oz Stiletto. I swung a Douglass for many years; but when I switched over to a Stiletto, the difference was night & day; I could never go back to a Douglass again. I noticed you're using LVL's for your stringers. Is that code in your area? We only use microlamms on commercial wood-frame jobs. Most framers in my area (Wichita, KS) use 2X12s; but I prefer the 2X12X16 Timberstrands myself. I thought I was the only one who didn't over-cut my stringers. Almost everyone I know does...it drives me CRAZY!!
Robert Hammond I like the Douglas because of the inverted dimples and being able to swap a handle with an allen wrench. I would like a lighter option, but haven't investigated to see if I can get the same head, yet lighter.
For the job in the videos the engineer called out the LVLs. Normally we are 2x12 out here.
Glad you enjoyed the vids. I'm in the process of make some more right now.
You should make a video on how to calculate archways in garage, and windows.
que dimenciones tienes yo te explico como hacerlo.... y las 4 formas que se hacerlo
Hi, could you please clarify, at 5mins into the video, where did you get 20 from?
That was an estimation based on the overall ht. 7 inches is a good stair height average. Take your overall rise and divide by 7 and that will tell you approx how many stairs you will need. Then turn around and divide your overall rise by the number of stairs you came up with and that will give you the exact rise per stair.
@@makenabuilt Thank you for the quick reply. From your explanation I understand how to calculate the number of rises, but how do you calculate the number of treads? Would you simply devide the total run by 10?
@@300saj "Treads" are a function of how many rises you need. Then your run will be approx 10" time the number of rises you need. Draw yourself a sketch of what your set of stairs will look like and it will make it easier to visualize.
@@makenabuilt Ah okay, thank you once again, I think I initially confused myself. Thank you, and great videos
Hello Sir. My name is Arodi you are good about explaining, but I need help about building a stairs. The opening is 82 inches wide x 87 inches of length. The height is 92 and 3/4 and the bottom of the ceiling is 80. I did my calculation and i need 13 risers but i dont know how to know if im doing right about the landing. Thank you
Hey Jodan, you are absolutely right. I was going over this too and he lost me at the "magic number 20"???? How did he arrive at that number.
From finish floor to finish floor it was 139.75 / 7. Landings are just extra deep treads. So you end up with 20- 7" risers and 17- 10" treads and 2- landings.
he is shooting to find a comfortable rise of 7".
Ed Waggoner Sr. Thanks so much Ed. I appreciate the information. Cheers
Where did the 109.75 come from? I'm trying to do the math for a 10' ceiling with 16" joists above. Is 109.75 for an 8' ceiling + floor joists and flooring?
I'm not able to go back and watch the video right now to see where that number came from but it was either my example number, or the actual number of the house that was being built in the second two videos. In your case, your dimension will be from the top of the deck where you are trying to get up to to the floor where you are leaving from
hi sir u r very good in ur calculation this is for strait stairs what about the carved stairs how we can calculate the number of stairs for the hight of the first floor is 3.4 mtr
The method to calculate the number and height of stairs for a circular staircase is the same as is show on the video. Good luck on your project!
I go over this in part two.
Its very simple. You devide 9ft 5in x 12 = 9.41 inch treads instead of 10 inch.
what about head room ,i saw no calculations for that