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This is an easy stair calculator you can use to determine the rise and run of each step in your stairs and the length of boards you need to buy for your stair stringers. It also gives you the length of the opening to cut in the upper floor of your stairs so you have a minimum amount of head room when using the stairs. (This amount varies per jurisdiction.) If you want to download this stair calculator for field work, here's how.
Measure the total rise of your stairs (from the surface of the upper floor to the surface of the lower floor). You can use either inches or centimeters in the stair calculator.
Enter this amount into Stairs Total Rise and set the stair calculator for either inches or centimeters.
Optional: If you need the length of the stairs Floor Opening in the upper floor then measure the thickness of the upper floor (it might be easier to subtract the ceiling height from the total rise) and enter this into Floor Thickness of the stair calculator.
Select a common stair rise-run combination from Simple or enter your own in Custom.
Press the Calculate button and read the results of the stair calculator in Exact Measurements
Press the Print Results button at the bottom of the stair calculator. This displays a new page. To print this new page, go to the File menu at the top of the stair calculator results window. Then click on Print.
