They will also provide a non-slick surface that can help prevent slips and adds to safety. While not being as strong or as permanent as concrete, flagstone, pavers, and bricks will not shift under the weight of people walking on them. These materials also eliminate drying times and a lot of the mess associated with mixing and pouring concrete. These materials are cost-effective and they will not require as much digging as would be necessary with a concrete landing pad. If you don’t want to go through all of the work involved in pouring a concrete landing for your deck steps, then you might consider flagstone, pavers, or brick instead. However, the slab will not need to have any footers. The piers will reach down below the frost line. The second way of building your concrete landing is to have the stairs mounted on top of piers or footers, and then pour a separate pad for the landing that is not attached to the stairs. This pad is generally 6” thick with a 4” thick base of crushed stone, with the footings or piers underneath stretching below the frost line. This will require you to have footings under your landing pad, preferably directly underneath the stair stringers. The first way is to build it so that the stairs can rest directly on top of the landing pad. There are two main ways to construct your concrete landing. A concrete landing will outlast the deck! However, it will also take the most work to build. It will not shift under weight and will require almost no upkeep. Concrete LandingĪ concrete landing is the most permanent and stable solution for your deck stair landing. ![]() Therefore if you anchor the stairs of an attached deck to a cement pad, it must have footings under it to the frost line like any of the other deck footings. This will rise and fall with the movement of the land, while the deck stays firm, potentially causing damage over time.Īs a rule, you can’t have a stable structure attached to a floating structure. Also, it needs to be sturdy enough to not shift under the weight of people walking.įor attached decks that are anchored below the frost line with footings, you can’t attach a floating structure, such as a landing pad with no footings. Despite this, certain materials work much better than others.įirst, the material needs to be able to be installed to a measurable and specific slope. While your deck stair landing must meet certain criteria to pass code, there is no definitive rule as to what material it can be constructed from. No matter how wide the stairs are, you will need a landing pad that stretches the entire width of the stairs. This can become an issue if you have very wide stairs descending from your deck. Additionally, your landing pad must be at least as wide as the stairs it is attached to. The first stipulation is that the landing must be at least 36” long from the staircase to the far edge of the landing pad. Code R311.7 in IRC 2009 contains regulations that apply to staircase landings. When building your landing, you must be sure that it is of adequate size to meet code. Then you are free to use a different material for the landing itself. Alternatively, you could use ground-rated wood posts or poured concrete footings in sonotubes to rest the stringers on. If you do plan to pour a cement pad for your landing, then this will suffice, as long as the footing reaches the required depth. ![]() They are not required to be on a large pad, but they must be sitting on something that reaches below the frost line, to prevent frost heave. ![]() In any freeze-thaw climate, the bottom of the stringers cannot be contacting the ground. If your deck is high up, this may mean that you have to add in one, or even more landings in your staircase. You cannot have more than 12 feet between floor levels or landings. If your deck is on the second floor or higher, you have another piece of the building code to factor in. It is allowed only 1/4” of slope per foot. There are several pieces of building code to consider when building your deck stair landing. In the case of a deck, it will also provide support for the base of your staircase, and a solid place to step off of the stairs to avoid accidents and injuries. All exterior staircases are required by code to have landings at the bottom and top to make sure it is safe and there is plenty of room for doors to swing, and for people to use.
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