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A 'Meticulous' staircase is installed!

By
Home Inspector with Meticulous Home Inspection Corporation 16000008857

After some serious sanding and finishing work before it left my house, the staircase is finally in!

This took some calculating to get just right as the house has no flooring, and I have to build and install this behemoth so that the rise of each step is perfect. Once the flooring is installed, the top landing will be exactly the same as the bottom landing, and there will be no tripping.

So many staircases I inspect have a high step at the top landing because people install layers of flooring upon old layers, and this increases the height of the last step at the top. This can be a tripping hazard, and I add this to my inspection reports when I find this situation.

Staircases are not easy, not light, and not very mobile, but today it found a new home. -Ray

Comments (3)

Robert Butler
Aspect Inspection - Montreal West Island, QC
Montreal Home Inspector | Aspect Inspection

Nice work Ray. Your calculations are the right way to do it. As carpenters we are taught this, it's the amatures who replicate stairs without doing the math or as you mention, layer on flooring with no planning or consideration for the stair riser height both at the top and bottom step. Top ends up too high. Bottom too low.

I wrote a blog about this for some exterior steps that you might enjoy :

http://robertbutlerhomeblog.com/post/2065100/what-wrong-in-this-picture-a-halloween-horror-tread-trickery-

(cut and paste to your browser address bar)

Feb 19, 2011 01:59 AM
Jill Sackler
Charles Rutenberg Realty Inc. 516-575-7500 - Long Beach, NY
LI South Shore Real Estate - Broker Associate

Nice job!! I've been following your progress and am happy to see the finished results.

Feb 19, 2011 11:26 AM
Ray Wilson
Meticulous Home Inspection Corporation - Bohemia, NY
NYS Licensed Home and Building Inspector

Hi Robert - Very cool picture of the steps from hell. Yikes! How do people who do this sleep at night? I see similar stuff, but never like that. - Ray

Hi Jill. Thanks for the response to my blogs, it is appreciated! -Ray

Feb 19, 2011 03:06 PM