Step 4: Determine the width of the stairs

Determining the overall width of the staircase is partially a personal preference. Typically, stairs are not built with a width less than 32 inches. If you are building with 2"x6" decking material, try to keep the width in 1 ft. increments (3ft, 4ft, 5ft, 6ft, etc.).

If you are building with 5/4"x6" or composite decking, try to keep the width in 16 inch increments (32", 48", 64", 80", etc.).

For this example, we'll be using 2"x6" decking for a 4 ft. wide staircase.