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01 / 09Stringers cut to your measured deck height so every riser is equal, with a graspable handrail on every flight and a proper landing pad.
Deck stairs are where sloppy carpentry becomes a trip hazard. When you walk down a flight your body learns the rise on the first step and then stops watching. If the bottom riser is 20 mm shorter than the rest, which is what happens when someone builds a generic stair and lets the last step land wherever grade puts it, that is the step people catch a toe on.
We measure your actual deck height and divide it into equal risers, then cut the decking stringers to that calculation. The Ontario Building Code allows a maximum rise of 200 mm and requires a minimum run of 235 mm for private stairs, with only a few millimetres of variation permitted between risers in the same flight. Getting there is arithmetic done before anything is cut, not adjustment afterwards. A flight that comes out one riser short of comfortable is usually a flight where somebody assumed the deck height instead of measuring it at the actual landing point.
Every flight gets a graspable handrail, meaning a profile a hand can actually close around, which a 2x4 laid flat is not. The handrail sits 865 to 965 mm above the stair nosing. Taller decks get landings and turns so no single flight runs unbroken down two storeys, and a landing is also what lets a stair change direction to suit the path people actually walk to the gate or the garage.
The last step lands on something, and what it lands on decides how long the stringers last. We set a landing pad or a concrete footing rather than letting the stringer ends sit in soil, where they wick moisture and rot from the cut end upward. On soft ground the bottom of a stair settles before anything else on a deck does, and a settled stair reintroduces the uneven riser you paid to avoid.
Wood decking steps are finished in the same surface material as the deck itself, whether that is pressure-treated, cedar, composite or PVC, so the stair reads as part of the structure. Stringers are pressure-treated regardless. Composite and PVC treads need a closed riser or a tighter stringer spacing than wood, because the tread is less stiff across the span.
On deck stairs, a split tread or a loose handrail is a repair. Uneven risers, a rotted stringer end or a stair that has pulled away from the deck is a rebuild, because none of those can be corrected without recutting the stringers.
| Riser calculation | Actual deck height measured, then divided into equal risers before anything is cut |
|---|---|
| Code limits | Maximum rise 200 mm, minimum run 235 mm for private stairs, with only a few millimetres of variation between risers in a flight |
| Handrail | Graspable profile at 865 to 965 mm above the nosing |
| Landings | Fitted on taller decks so no single flight runs unbroken down two storeys, and where the stair has to change direction |
| Stair base | Landing pad or concrete footing, never stringer ends in soil |
| Treads | Finished in the deck's own surface material; stringers are pressure-treated regardless |
We are an installation contractor, not a manufacturer or a materials retailer. We build decks and fences on your property across the Greater Toronto Area: layout, footings below the frost line, framing, boards, railings, stairs and gates, finished and inspected. Composite boards are a surface option we install, alongside pressure-treated lumber and western red cedar, and the boards themselves are made by manufacturers we do not represent and whose brands we do not resell. If you already have material on site we can build with it; if you do not, we specify and source what suits the deck and include it in the written fixed price. What you are buying from us is the build and the crew that stands behind it, not a product off a shelf.
