Ask a Building Trades Professional

[Old Hippy]

Okay, we're on the same page, that's exactly what I'm picturing.

It occurs to me that if you attach the brackets to the step boards first, instead of to the deck.. that it doesn't really matter if stuff isn't aligned. We'll just put a level on the board before we screw it in and align it then.

Is it going to be easy to hold the board level while everything is screwed into place? Not when the brackets are attached to the board, that part seems easy, but when the board is attached to the deck?

I always have an hand and bang in a nail into the bracket, part way, at each end to hold the step still and take the weight for the person holding the step,

on the deck itself I don't use brackets, but if you are, well eventually you have to get underneath, so their I would fix the brackets first and just screw up your helper just stands on top of the board to hold it down firm while you screw into it.

 

[Cutlass]

@Cutlass

Wow, so that's not even a proper stair bracket?? It's a makeshift piece of !$&!$ that's designed for something completely different?

NO WONDER the stairs have been wobbly. Maybe they've been wobbly from the beginning. Do you think getting the 12 inch wide instead of the 6 inch wide boards will fix that? It seems like it probably will, but it also seems that some of them might not align 100%. So there's pros and cons. Would you agree?

Should I see what they recommend at RONA for brackets for this sort of job? I'm not against redoing all that.. Too bad there's no easy way to install a strainer.

Whether the bigger board aligns with the existing brackets will depend on just how good a job the builder did installing the brackets. After you take the steps off, put a level to the brackets and see how good of a line they are in. Switching to a 2x12 will at the least gain you that all of your weight is spanned on both brackets on the side, rather than on only one of them. So it should be both more stable and more secure. The other point is that if you look at the screw heads on the sides of the bracket into the side boards, you can see that they are down snug to the brackets. That is, they are tight and can't move. But the screw heads into the bottom of the stairs are not as snug. That looseness means that the boards have an opportunity to move when you put your weight on them, and that they are more likely to get even looser over time. The builder probably did that because it's hard to put screws upwards into the bottom of stairs. Not a lot of room to work with.

 

[GinandTonic]

While touched upon at the start it really is important to note the non galvanised nails. And how it could be worth having a good old look at how they are holding up in the areas you are not replacing. Really, you don't want to be balancing on that kind of nonsense.

 

[Gary Childress]

I have a question for a building trades professional or anyone who knows about batteries. Do solar rechargeable batteries last as long as regular batteries?

I've been trying to cut down on my use of fossil fuels a little recently. For example I have a solar powered flashlight with a rechargeable battery in it which I use at night instead of turning lights on, in hope that it saves at least a small miniscule amount of oil. At some point those rechargeable batteries will hit the land fill but I'm hoping at a slower rate than using non-rechargeable would. Is that the case? Will those batteries last longer and save even a few drops of oil maybe?

Any enlightenment would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Cutlass]

A rechargeable battery, depending on the type, can give you a couple years of use. It doesn't matter if you're recharging with solar or not. But you do want to find out what the type of battery you are using wants for use in order to remain in top shape. That is, some need to be used and recharged regularly. Others you just keep them charged.

 

[warpus]

We just got back from RONA. They had actual deck steps on sale! We got 3 2x10x42 inch steps and 11 2x10x48 inch steps. My roommate thinks that they are a better kind of wood than the stuff we were going to get initially. So this sale seems to have really worked out for us!

The thing is that the existing steps were 5 1/2 x 2 plus a space in between. So the brackets might have to be moved.. in some cases.. or they're going to be sticking out the sides. which sucks, but it seems like it'll have to be done in some cases or things will look stupid.

This way we didn't need to rent a van either, which would have cost $20 plus tax. The steps fit in my roommate's car as they were.

We'll see what the foreman says when he gets here (roommate's dad - tomorrow morning). We might very well go out and buy new brackets? I'm not really sure.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm not sure how well you can see this.

Spoiler :

This is something my neighbor did years ago. Like your stairs, it has 2 diagonal boards on the outside and the steps supported between them. But what he did is instead of using brackets, he cut another board to fill between the steps and act as brackets. What this means is that instead of the weight of each step, and the person on it, being supported by just a few screws, each step is actually supported by the step beneath it, and the one beneath that, and so on all the way to the ground. That is, the screws hold things in place, but the real weight distribution is not on the screws. And all this takes is the ability to cut an angle on a piece of wood which is the same as the angle of the diagonal board. Think you can do that?

 

[warpus]

So basically buy 2 pieces of lumber that match what the brackets are mounted to right now, and to cut grooves in them where the steps are going to go? And then attach them to the deck as it is, on the inside?

It seems that that might be way easier to do than take off all the brackets and reapply them one by one... But do I have everything right?

 

[Cutlass]

Not grooves. That would be a lot more difficult. Each of the pieces between the different stairs is a separate piece.

 

[Old Hippy]

So basically buy 2 pieces of lumber that match what the brackets are mounted to right now, and to cut grooves in them where the steps are going to go? And then attach them to the deck as it is, on the inside?

It seems that that might be way easier to do than take off all the brackets and reapply them one by one... But do I have everything right?

the picture cutlass showed would be how I would do it... what you have to be carefull of is turning a DIY project into a fully fledged building project, if you get my drift, brackets are a lot eaiser and if you get one wrong you can reapply it, a slight mistake in the housings (grooves) and you start to need brackets to correct it...

edit* as cutlass pointed out they are not housed but it uses two boards on each side, one cut to infill between the treads, a good solution, but one I would be wary of recomendeing unless you are comfortable cuting all thoses angles, it is a longer cut than straight across, and accuracy is important, and as you mentioned you had a bench saw for your flooring job, you might find the extra length is not possible with a smallish saw...

 

[Cutlass]

the picture cutlass showed would be how I would do it... what you have to be carefull of is turning a DIY project into a fully fledged building project, if you get my drift, brackets are a lot eaiser and if you get one wrong you can reapply it, a slight mistake in the housings (grooves) and you start to need brackets to correct it...

edit* as cutlass pointed out they are not housed but it uses two boards on each side, one cut to infill between the treads, a good solution, but one I would be wary of recomendeing unless you are comfortable cuting all thoses angles, it is a longer cut than straight across, and accuracy is important, and as you mentioned you had a bench saw for your flooring job, you might find the extra length is not possible with a smallish saw...

Buy, borrow, or rent, a compound miter saw. Then you can easily lock in an angle and repeat the cut as often as you need to.

 

[Old Hippy]

Buy, borrow, or rent, a compound miter saw. Then you can easily lock in an angle and repeat the cut as often as you need to.

absolutely agree, but will point out the one pictured in your link while able to square cut the treads from your earlier picture if you flip them and make a second cut, could not make the angle cuts required because if you flip them their will be a different angle and two, it would probally still have a bit in the centre uncut, my angle saw is actually mounted on the back of a trailer,(24'' blade plus a draw of 30''outwards) that I set up on site, so it is something I do all the time, I persume warpus has something like the one in your link, perfectly good for installing a floating floor, more of a hindrance making longer angle cuts, he would be better of using brackets, that can be redone if wrong, even redone several times

I am not disagreeing with you, just trying think of problems ahead of time to avoid stuff ups, I've made enough stuff ups myself, might as well get some use out of them...

 

[Cutlass]

It looks like that angle board is only a 2x8. The stair tread itself is not getting an angle cut. So a smaller saw than the one you have should handle it. I'm not doing this professionally, so only have a 10" saw. And I could do it. All the side pieces are being cut to the same angle.

 

[warpus]

Project new deck steps update

1. We cut the boards to exactly 40 inches across each.
2. We took down the top 6 steps out of the 13 steps that are being replaced (they are split in half by a mini-deck type thing). This was painful.
3. We went to RONA to buy deck screws, but saw brackets that would fit the boards I bought perfectly... but then we saw stringers and thought those would provide the most stability, so I bought that..
4. Turns out stringers only work if your steps are the exact angle of the stringer, which my stairs aren't.
5. So we drove back to RONA to get the brackets, and so I bought a box of sweet looking brackets. But they didn't have the recommended screws for them there, or in fact any screws that would work. We needed them to be a certain length, not over 2 inches, and the head had to be big enough not to go through the hole in the bracket. Should be easy to find, right? Nope. Drove to TLC.. And they had some.. but they weren't galvanized and would rust. So we drove to Canadian Tire and found 6 boxes of 6 screws.. 36 screws.. perfect for the job. Flagged down an associate, he told us that there are 11 boxes of 6 screws on the other end of the city and other boxes even further away... We needed 156 bolts total (13 steps x 12 bolts per step), so we just came home with the 26 brackets and 36 bolts.
6. The stairs have 2 parts of them - the top part has 6 steps, the bottom part 7. We decided to mount the new brackets to the upper part only - using all 36 bolts - and to screw in the stair boards using deck screws I had bought previously. The lower 7 steps are for now unchanged.
7. After we get more screws we're doing the lower stairs, and then when we have all 156 magical motherflipping screws we're screwing in all the boards properly. Right now the are not really wobbly, but they aren't snug. You do not want to run on them.

We finished the top 6 stairs just before it got dark.

- The bottom step has a large bolt sticking out where the bracket is supposed to go. So we had to improvise and use one of the old crappy brackets (which is smaller) on the front of the step, and overlay it with one of the new brackets for the back. The new bracket sticks out a bunch in the back, but as long as it doesn't stick out in the front I'm fine with that.

- Once we have the magical bolts, the plan is to nail in the step boards from the side using long deck nails, for extra snugness, and then screw in the new bolts from the bottom. For the very lowest step this won't be possible, but whatever.

- One of the step boards is a bit warped and thus kinda wobbly. I know that this is "what wood does", but we're going to see how it is once we have the new bolts in place and everything is snug. If it's still crappy, I bought an extra step for emergencies, so we're just going to get that cut down to 40 inches (we left it alone when cutting all the other ones), and use it instead.

Here's what it used to look like:

Here's what it looks like now:

 

[Old Hippy]

and you have plenty of space behind so no problem finnishing it

 

[Cutlass]

With the step that's slightly warped, you may be able to get it straight again if weight it or clamp it until it's the shape you want and let it get rained on a few times that way.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Very good, warpus! to our CFC builders!

 

[warpus]

Thanks for all your help guys!

Turns out my steps are made out of cedar, too! Which I've been told is the master tree race.

 

[warpus]

So.. now I'm in the process of trying to find the 42 1/4" 1-1/2" lag bolts/screws to screw the remaining brackets into the deck.. and 78 1/4" 1" lag bolts/screws to screw in the step boards into the brackets. We used 36 (78-42) 1/4" 1-1/2" lag screws already, and they worked great, so I want the same thing for everything else. But 1 1/2" is too much, it almost punctures the step board, so for the remaining 78 steps I want something shorter. (I hope all that makes sense)

So far I've found this company, which has distribution here..

So I think I need this screw and this screw. I've emailed my roommate's dad and asked him if that's what I need. Once he confirms, I'm putting in an order for 2 boxes of 100 screws each.. and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up at one of their stores here.. or some 3rd party vendor type place..

That's plan A anyway. Plan B is to pick up 7 boxes of the 1/4" 1-1/2" screws at the Canadian Tire in the southern end of the city.. which would give me 42 screws total - exactly what I need. But it's far and a silly place and nobody really ever wants to go there. And then I'd need to find the other screws somewhere, and so far screws like that have been far and few and whatever else in between. So plan A seems like a better bet.

I haven't really shopped around that much, but everything I'm seeing online seems like it's not at all what I want.. aside from these fastenal guys. But now this is sounding more and more like a ramble, so I'm just gonna go to sleep

edit: bolts ordered, roommate picking them up tomorrow, came out to only $43.59 plus tax Canadian. CHEAPER than the US$ list price on their website, which would have been about $4.50 more or something like that. which is weird because stuff in Canada is like 98% of the time more expensive. Either way, we are going to have what we need to finish the deck by the end of the day tomorrow. So Thursday, Friday, or Saturday is probably when some of this is going down.

 

[Perfection]

I have a question for a building trades professional or anyone who knows about batteries. Do solar rechargeable batteries last as long as regular batteries?

I've been trying to cut down on my use of fossil fuels a little recently. For example I have a solar powered flashlight with a rechargeable battery in it which I use at night instead of turning lights on, in hope that it saves at least a small miniscule amount of oil. At some point those rechargeable batteries will hit the land fill but I'm hoping at a slower rate than using non-rechargeable would. Is that the case? Will those batteries last longer and save even a few drops of oil maybe?

Any enlightenment would be appreciated. Thanks.

I can ask a lot of questions here, but the biggest one is, how much do you use it?

Rechargeable batteries are pretty good, and they keep getting better. You're going to do better then regular batteries if you use it every day for a significant period of time, if it sits around doing nothing, it's not worth it. Non-rechargeable batteries are quite inefficient, so I would say the source of the power (solar vs grid) is probably not the deciding factor here.

However, if you're using it instead of household lights, you're really contrasting it with a third thing, grid power. Things get murkier there. You're purchasing a complicated manufactured item that had to be transported to your house to save a little bit of grid power. It's likely you won't break even on the energy equation. Of course, grid power carbon cleanliness varies from region to region (and over the time of day).

Really though, for concerns of carbon footprint, this is small potatoes. Your real enemies are your car and appliances. Sealing your windows and going easy on the gas pedal will save much more then any of this.