Ask the Builder: Why Your Stairs and Steps Are the Size They Are

Walking on old stairs can be scary since it was built before there was a building code.
Ask the Builder: Why Your Stairs and Steps Are the Size They Are
Beautiful stairs have to be safe to use. Didecs/Shutterstock
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You probably give little thought to why the stairs in your home are built the way they are. I’m talking about how high you need to lift your foot to get up to the next step and how deep the flat tread is when your foot falls. The vertical face of a stair is called a riser and the flat step is a tread.

I’ve built many staircases in my career. I also had the good fortune to go up and down many steep ship ladders (stairs) on the USS George Washington (CVN 73). I was on board for an in-depth media tour as she carved crescent-shaped courses 200 miles off the North Carolina coast. New naval aviators were doing their daytime and nighttime qualification tail hooks for the first time. The only elevators on this huge aircraft carrier are for airplanes, not sailors.

Tim Carter
Tim Carter
Author
Tim Carter is the founder of AsktheBuilder.com. He's an amateur radio operator and enjoys sending Morse code sitting at an actual telegrapher's desk. Carter lives in central New Hampshire with his wife, Kathy, and their dog, Willow. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter at AsktheBuilder.com. He now does livestreaming video M-F at 4 PM Eastern Time at youtube.com/askthebuilder. (C)2022 Tim Carter. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.