Laying Out Stairs and Rails: Rise, Run, Stringers, Headroom, and Rails, with Thirty Layout Problems and 421 Practice Exercises

By Talor Press

A stair is decided by one dimension: the total rise. Everything else follows from it, and getting it wrong is not something you fix later.

Thirty-two lessons in six parts cover the geometry of a stair from the floor-to-floor dimension to a marked stringer: total rise and how it is measured, dividing it into equal risers, types of stair and what each one changes, nosings, tread depth and the comfort relationships, stringer layout and the drop, headroom and where it is tightest, landings and winders, concrete and pan stairs, exterior steps and site stairs, handrail heights and guard geometry, newels and terminations, tolerance and the decision, and the ten-line stair check.

Two lessons here repay the price of the book on their own. Riser height must be equal within a very small tolerance across the whole flight, so the total rise is divided rather than assumed. And the stringer drop, the amount cut off the bottom so the first riser finishes equal to the rest, catches people who have built stairs for years.

WHAT IS INSIDE
32 lessons, each with the rule in a shaded box, worked examples with every step shown, a note on the usual error, a note from the field, and four practice questions with answers
20 measured diagrams
12 worksheets with two variations each and full solutions
30 layout problems, each taken from the floor-to-floor dimension to the marked stringer
421 practice exercises in twelve sets, every one with a worked solution
A 40-line Before You Cut checklist, twenty questions, reference tables, a page on where to verify every figure, and a glossary

Every rise, run, tread, nosing, headroom, height and tolerance printed here is an example, chosen so the arithmetic can be shown. None of them is a figure for your job or a code requirement. Yours come from the drawings and the specification, the designer, and the codes your jurisdiction has adopted. This book designs nothing, specifies nothing, and sets no tolerance.

162 pages. 6 x 9 inches.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HKGCW6FK
• ISBN13: 9798175811606
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"