Most all deck builders (including first-timers) understand the importance of sloping the deck itself. The last thing you want to worry about is water pooling up on your deck – or running towards your home! But what about your deck stairs?
While your deck needs to be sloped (according to code, if not even more so) it’s a good idea to leave your deck stairs alone. People are expecting to step on flat and level steps every time they put their feet on them, and deck stairs are no exception.
Of course, you can get away with slightly sloping your steps if you really have trouble with water. We go into that a little deeper in the rest of this detailed guide.
Answer To The Question Should Deck Stairs Be Sloped:
As we just mentioned a moment ago, deck stairs (by and large) should be designed to be as flat and as level as humanly possible.
While decks are built to be sloped, moving water off of them and towards a pre-strategized collection point, your stairs are (usually) a lot shorter and you don’t have to worry about water build up on them so much.
Even better, you don’t have to worry about water sloping towards your home from your deck stairs – or even towards your deck in most situations!
For these reasons, sloping your deck stairs and your deck steps can be a little bit of overkill.
No. Build them level and you should be good to go!
Sloped Stairs Are (Usually) Overkill
A lot of folks that go against the advice of leaving their deck steps level and upsloping their stairs a little harder and a little more aggressively than they should, ending up with steps that shed water like the back of a duck but our next to impossible to navigate (especially after a few summertime beverages)!
Talk about a nightmare scenario.
Most of this has to do with the fact that regular folks (homeowners, DIYers, and even rookie contractors) are unaware of just how little you need to sloped things in the first place to get water moving in the direction of your choice.
For starters, water will almost never run uphill – especially if it has an opportunity to run downhill.
That means that the slightest slope is going to let gravity do the bulk of the heavy lifting for you, pulling the water away in the direction that you have gently tilted your deck.
Since you aren’t (usually) going to be sloping your deck towards your deck steps but instead towards one open side of the deck or the other – always away from your home – you don’t have to worry about a lot of water ending up on your deck steps to begin with.
Remember that building codes (though they vary a little bit depending on your locality) almost always recommend a slope of about 2% over the entire run of the deck itself. This is for stoops, decks that are attached to homes, porches, and any other exterior “floor” on the property.
A 2% slope means that you’re going to want to slope about .25 inches over a single foot or 1 inch over 4 feet of span. And – as we just highlighted a moment ago – that’s usually a bit overkill.
Split the Difference with Centering Treads
If your deck steps are 4 feet wide that would mean you’d have one end of inch higher than the other. You might not notice that on the entirety of your deck (especially if it’s 20 feet long or longer), but on something as small as your deck steps you’ll notice it for sure.
At the same time, you don’t want perfectly leveled out deck steps that are going to make the rest of your deck look like it is falling into an abyss on one side and jacked up into the sky on the other.
A lot of contractors alike to “split the difference”, doing .5 inches of slope from one side to the other on a 4 foot run just to kind of keep things consistent.
This very minimal slope is going to give you plenty to pull water away from the top of your steps (you won’t have to worry about it pooling), but it’s also going to make your stairs a lot more visually consistent with the rest of the deck itself.
If you absolutely, positively want to slope your steps this is the way to go.
Figure out the slope that you used on your deck, split the difference, and then use that to center your steps and when you stick them on the deck itself.
What’s the Code Say?
The International Building and Residential Codes (IBRC) dictate that the walking surface of all treads in the landings of all stairs – including deck steps – are sloped no more than 1 inch over a 4 foot span.
This means that if you have a 12 inch deep tread you can only have .25 inches of outslope before you violate the building code.
Luckily, if you follow the tip we included above (splitting the difference and centering your steps) you won’t ever have to worry about running afoul of the IBRC.
Instead you’ll end up with steps for your deck that are always in full code compliance but are also really comfortable and convenient to use as well. Not to mention (practically) water free!
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully we’ve put to bed the idea that you have to slope your deck steps the same way that you slope your deck.
That’s just not the case (most of the time, anyway).
Some people still like to gently slop their steps a little bit just so that the contrast between perfectly leveled steps and a sloped deck doesn’t throw off the aesthetics of their project. And there’s really nothing wrong with that – provided you maintain a minimal slope that isn’t going to ruin the utility of the steps themselves.
At the end of the day, after all, you want safe steps to use more than anything else.
How they look when made it up to your deck is just gravy on top!
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