kai779•14d ago

TIL that stair tread dimensions changed in the 70s and nobody updated their jigs

I was building a set of replacement treads for a house built in 1965, and my measurements kept coming up short. After three tries I finally looked it up and found out the standard riser height was changed from 7.5 inches to 7 inches in 1973. I found this in an old building code book at the local lumber yard. Has anyone else run into old measurements messing up a job?

2 comments

2 Comments

evand6514d ago

Wait, so if you were building treads for a 1965 house, wouldn't the original stairs already be built with the old 7.5 inch rise? Like, shouldn't your treads just match whatever was there before?

holly_flores7914d ago

Shouldn't your treads just match whatever was there before?" - that's what everyone thinks until you actually measure the old stairs lol. The problem is houses from that era often have settled foundations, shifted framing, or people did half-hearted "updates" over the years. I've legit measured stairs in the same house where every single step was a different height because someone replaced the flooring but not the stringers. So you gotta measure each run individually and build to the tightest tolerance you can get. Yeah it's annoying but beats having someone trip because one step is a quarter inch off.