Get the latest news and information from us. Join our newsletter!
How can I build stairs on my dirt hill?
I have a 45 degree slanted dirt hill. The soil is medium to hard dirt. How can I build stairs, possibly wooden stairs safely and efficiently?
Answer: that is a tough slope to build on. to be correct steps should run about 11" for every 7" they rise. as you can see that is less than a 45 degree angle. you really need to keep the rise per step under 7". so at a 45 degree the run would be only 7".
one way a have built garden steps is, working from bottom up, setting a cut length of RailRoad ties [they're about 7" high into the ground, repeating that as many times as you need steps.
if you have a bigger hill to climb you might want to build a switch back set of stairs, go up at right angle to hill with a set of steps to a platform, another set of steps switching back to another plaform and so forth.
here are a few sites:
http://www.americanbaby.com/bhg/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/12506.xml&categoryid=/templatedata/bhg/category/data/sc_786.xml&page=1
