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During the last few years answering questions on this website, I’ve retained a few good examples of different stairs for decks.
Here is an example of the basic stairs off an elevated deck. Notice that the one piece 4x4 posts holding the handrail for the stairs also carry the weight of the stringers. When attaching stringers to a deck with only a 2x6 box joist, there usually is nothing to attach the stringers to. Here the stringer is bolted to the posts and a ledger board is installed under the stringer for those with a longer run. Either pressure treated wood or concrete pads are shown under the posts and bottom step of the stringer, rather than having the stringers and posts just sitting on the ground.
In this drawing, tapered steps are shown with the treads having equal depths as they turn the corner. This example shows a run of steps between two levels of a deck.
Notice in this drawing that the treads are extended in depth so that the nosings are all the same lengths.
In this drawing is an elevated deck of about 5' with stairs returning back to the deck. A set of stairs such as this is a bit more complicated than the simple stairs in the first drawing. This example is from a custom plan that I drew up for Tom, a member of our site. Refer to my article Deck Stairs with Returns. for the plans for these stairs.
Other ideas for deck stairs may be to climb up to a pool or hot tub.
Rather than climbing up to a pool, here is a sketch of a pool or hot tub enclosed by a deck, but not sitting on it. The pool or tub is sitting on a level bed of compacted sand.
Here is a drawing I did for a couple who had to contend with the back garden sloping 90 degrees to the direction of the steps. Notice how we divide up the vertical height difference as well as the width of the step for the supports, so that each support has a different height. Since the height difference is 4" we can still stay in the safe envelope of riser height by starting with a height on the left of about 4" and ending with a height on the right of 8".
I hope some of these drawings will help you in deciding how to build your stairs and your decks.
