The New York code says the rise can be as large as 8.25 and the tread is to
be at least 10 and should have a nose .75 to 1.25. I was thinking of
cheating a bit on the nose; my main concern is that the tread is quite wide
for stairs that are this steep. I don't know what the inspector says--I'll
try calling him tomorrow. We want to do the stairs day after tomorrow.


"Colbyt" wrote in message
news

"donald girod" wrote in message
...
A house we are building (Habitat project) has the following basement
stair
situation:

The total run of the stairs cannot exceed 115" because of headroom
issues--the state code requires minimum headroom of 6'8"=80 inches, and
there is a steel beam flange at 115" which is 85" above the floor. The
total height of the stairs is 103.5". With 13 steps, the rise per step
is
7.96". There are 12 treads, and 115/12 = 9.58" run per step. The
building
code requires at least a 10" tread, so stairs with 12 treads, a 7.96
rise
and a 10" tread with about 1/2" nose would work (the nose of the bottom
step would project slightly under the beam but nobody is going to care
about
this).

However, these dimensions violate the "two risers + 1 tread = 24 to 25"
rule; you get 26, which is too large. My question: is a set of stairs
with
these dimensions going to be uncomfortable or unsafe to use? I know
that
8"
rise and 9" tread works just fine (that's what my stairs are), but I
don't
know how it would feel if the treads suddenly grew an inch.


Your degree of slope is high (38 degrees +-). But without getting the
rise
down to about 7- 7.5 you aren't going to correct that. Very few stairs in
modern construction manage it.

That said, after a few trips up and down them most people adjust to the
stairs as they exist. As long as the rise is 8" or less I think you will
be
fine for utility stairs. I would consider the wider tread an asset and I
have small feet. What does the local code say about the rise?

Colbyt