Hot Dipped Galvanized!

Redwood and zinc just go together, don't you think?

The back steps from our kitchen down to the sidewalk had started to rot and needed to be replaced. We knew they were getting old and starting to give way. The wood was getting spongy and the steps had more of a bouncy spring to them than is strictly necessary. It was just a matter of time before someone put a foot through one of the boards. Our hope was that one of us would be the first victim, and not a guest or lawyered-up visitor.

Anyway, the steps aren't very complicated, and there are only two of them, so how hard can it be, right? Well... Nothing was level, plumb, or parallel, so the geometry was a bit tricky. The porch itself slopes slightly from left to right to shed water. It also slopes from back to front so that water doesn't puddle next to the door. So that's the first challenge.

The concrete sidewalk also slopes, again in both directions. It's a bit closer to the house on one side than the other, in addition to the obvious right-to-left slope. But the steps themselves have to be level or it'll feel funny to walk on. No problem. That's what circular saws are for.

Demolishing the old stuff is always fun, and this time it came with one of those $^&@#!! moments when you wonder how the thing ever held together in the first place. There was no apparent support under the steps. No wonder they bounced; they were floating in midair. Foundation consisted of dry-stacked bricks lying in the dirt. Mortar? Nah, we don't need that. I think the 27 coats of paint is mostly what held it all together.

The good news was, the porch itself was in pretty good shape. The surface is 3" tongue-and-groove that we really wanted to preserve if we could, and it looked sound so we left it alone. The porch is covered, so the weather damage was limited to just the stairs, which had to be rebuilt anyway. So there's that.

They say the five most expensive words in remodeling are, "as long as we're here..." but that wasn't the case this time. The deck was solid and even the supports underneath were in good shape. I don't know how old the support structure is, but the 2x6 lumber had square shoulders and really did measure exactly 2" by 6", so it's probably older than me. Another win.

But as long as we're here... I took the opportunity to shore up some of the structure anyway and added three new concrete piers, including one right in the middle of the stairs. That should keep the new stairs from sagging for another 50 years or so.

All the new lumber is heart redwood, because that's what the entire house is built from. It's kind of a shame, because we're going to paint over all of this and nobody will see the nice redwood. Still, it would seem like cheating to use Douglas fir or pine on something like this. So gimme the good stuff.

If you've never built stairs, it's surprisingly tricky. Or maybe I'm just an idiot. Seems easy, right? Nice right angles. No curves. Everything regular. But I must've spent hours staring at the open gap, scribbling in my notebook and taking the same measurements four or five times. C'mon, it's only two steps! There's a 7/11 rule of thumb for stairs: 7" vertical rise and 11" horizontal tread is considered comfortable and safe. You can stray from that a little bit, but whatever you do, make all the steps the same. I adhered very close to that standard while also making sure that the finished project fit into the existing deck and sidewalk. The folks who built this place in 1893 certainly weren't working to the same code specifications.

After the new concrete set up and the support posts went in, it was time to frame up the new stairs with new stringers. I imagine you get good at this with practice, but I spent an embarrassing amount of time checking and rechecking to make sure everything was plumb, level, and evenly spaced. Once you make a few critical cuts you can't go back. Remarkably, everything lined up just as expected.

So here are the new steps in all their raw redwood glory. I routed the front edges of the steps to give them a bit of a rounded profile, and so they don't look like they just came from the lumberyard. There's also a bit of cove molding underneath the nose of each step to copy the old steps that came out. It's all held together with galvanized nails, which should postpone rusting for at least a few weeks until Kathy has time to paint it all over.