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Number of Steps Required for Patio Stairs

When designing a stone stair that the depth of the step should be around two times its height and the stair should not have more than three steps on any flight of stairs.

The required number of steps will likely depend on the distance from the top landing of the stair and the bottom landing.

I will show you how to design stone patio with an optimum number stair steps.

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Depending on your particular situation, your stone stairs may have one step, two steps, three or more steps.

In some special cases you may not need stairs at all and here is how you can go about if you are not sure what to do. If the distance does not allow you to fit a full height stair step you can opt for a half height step by not installing step risers.

Half Step Design

The alternative is to rise the level of the patio such that no stair step is required. Your patio will look like this.

No Stair Design

The distance between the bottom of the patio door and the level of you patio should be typically around 5 inches. A larger distance will make the access in and out the patio door quite difficult, especially for children and elder people.

However, in a warm climate where the chances of getting persistent snow on your patio are slim, you may want consider raising your patio at about 1 to 2 inch from the bottom of your patio door. Either case, do not forget to provide adequate water drainage by grading your patio approximately 1/2 inches for each 9 linear foots.

Should the distance from the bottom of the patio door to the ground calls for more than three stair steps, I do recommend you to adopt a more creative solution.

I do not recommend building flights of stairs with more than three steps as you will most likely end up with out of proportions stairs. Also, the massive amount of compacted gravel may crack the basement wall resulting in water leaking into your basement.

Some men learn by reading. For the men out there who would like to see for themselves, here is how to repair a basement water leak.

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