The stairs are in. Details on the build ain the next paragraph. Overall I was very impressed with the stairs and the final product. The president of the company called me on Friday to apologize for the continued dealys on shipping the kits out to me. He explained that the kits had finally come in and would be shipping out to me. I explained to him that I ordered them a week earlier in anticipation of a get together of some friends this weekend. I asked if he would upgrade to saturday delivery for free and he obliged - A++. The kit showed up via UPS about noon yesterday and I got real busy putting it together and had it done by about 5:00. I haven't rushed any of the build up to this point because I know thats when most mistakes are made. Luckily this one went off without a hitch.
I didnt take pictures during stages of the build because of the time constraint but everything is just like you see on their website and this kit really was easy to build, even if its a 1 man project. You start by doing some simple calculations and can figure out 1) what length stringers to get. I got lucky here. I went to Lowe's and was planning on just getting 2X6X14. they didnt have 14' so I got 16' and was debating on just getting 12' because i thought for sure that would be long enough. Getting the 16' was a wise choice as I wouldve had to take the 14' or 12' back to get the 16'. My calculations came to 15.8' stringers so the 16' worked out perfect.
With this length stringer the spacer that they sent to use only had about 13 adjustments on it labeled a-m( I think). It turns out I needed a slot before the "a" to work out perfect. After using the spacers to place the brackets on the 2X6 stringers you just screw in 2 pivot screws and then after you have them in you rotate the brackets until you reach the correct riser height. Very easy - and then lock it in place with the rest of the screws - thats a lot of screws. Most of your time will be spent screwing and you will need a lot of them. I think I needed around 300+ after its all said and done.
Next you make your cuts on the ends to finalize the stringer length. Once again pretty straight forward. After that I had to decide whether I was going to hang the stringers one at a time or prebuild the stairs and then hang them. I decided a compromise by doing two end treads and risers to hold it all together and then put both stringers in place and build it. I still had to put a double header up on the second floor and this took about an hour because I had to cut the OSB back and then lift a doubled up 2X112 header and hang them with joist hangers, by myself. That alone was as difficult as lifting the stringers and walking up the ladder and holding them in place while nailing in the angled corner hangers.
Anyway after getting them done and walking up and down I noticed the stairs do tilt on a 3-5 degree angle becaus of the limitation on the spacer kit. This is barely noticable and I can easily add a washer shim on the treads to correct this. I can't believe I got them all done in time for company last night. Now I am really close to being able to get the framing inspection done. I am very happy right now. I almost forgot I went 45" wide on the stairs and you can go up to 9' using this kit. It is an extremely strong design. Have a look:
