Deck Replacement in Roselawn, OH

Roselawn (ZIP 45237) is mid-century stock with wide, shallow decks across the back, and on a deck shaped like that there is usually one stair doing all the work. How wide it is happens to be a decision most people are never offered, and it is one of the few places on a deck where a small number changes something you notice daily.

The minimum clear width for a residential stair is 36 inches, and the measurement is taken between the handrails and not between the stringers. So a 36-inch flight with a rail on both sides is narrower than 36 inches at the point where your shoulders are. That is a perfectly good stair for one person going down carefully. It is tight for somebody carrying a tray, and two people are not passing on it. A flight at 42 or 48 inches uses the same footing and the same rise and run; what it adds is tread material and one more stringer.

On a deck that is the route to the yard, the stair gets used more than any other part of it, and it is the thing that quietly decides whether the yard gets used at all. Wider also sits better under a long deck, where a narrow flight off a wide edge reads as an afterthought. So both widths go on the drawing with a price against each, and at the survey we ask what actually goes down it: a mower, a cooler, a folded table, a stroller. The number follows the answer.