" This is what you call a springer."

" That's right. Yup, stair springer."

" And we'll have 3 of them in place here. There we'll put our treads and our risers on and we'll be able to climb up there."

" That's it."

" Well, tell us about how you figured out how to cut it, what the dimension should be?"

" I guess the first thing to figure out is what your total height is, right?"

" Yes, that's right. That's to recall out our total rise and in this particular case we have 103 inches, 8 foot 7."

" And we're measuring from the rough work to the rough work."

" Alright."

" Eventually, one has to figure out carpeting or hardwood floors or whatever else, but right now we're just dealing with the basics. The structure of the staircase and what everybody wants to know is how do you determine, you know, how many inches this should be and how many inches that should be?"

" Just pretty simple. The architect has already given most of the information to us----"

" Yes."

" He already told us we need 13 risers."

" Uhm."

" So we just take our total risers which is 103 inches----"

" Yeah."

" Divided by the 13 and that would give us in this case 7 and 7/8, 7 inch."

" Okay. But there's a rule of thumb, isn't it?"

" There is the rule of thumb is that your total rise ah----excuse me, a single rise plus a single tread should be between 16 and 18 inches."

" When you add up, this dimension and this dimension, the total should be somewhere between 16 and 18. That's gonna guarantee that you end up with the comfortable tread or your whole foot is gonna fit and that the rise won't be so high that you're really, you know, getting out of breath by the time you're upstairs. So you put this temporarily in place. You've checked it."

" This is right. This is the pattern to the rest of them and I was gonna take this out and cut the other too."

" Let's take it out."

" Okay."

" So this is our pattern. We're gonna take this and what we will do is ride it right over our other string is and----"

" Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait----why don't you show us first of all how you----how you mark this one off before it turns into a pattern, okay?"

" Okay. Okay. The first thing we'll need is a framing square."

" You gotta have a framing square."

" Right. Now we've already established that our rise is 7 and 7/8 inch, so we'll just hold 7 to 7/8 to the edge of our lumber right here."

" On the edge of the timber, yeah."

" That's----that's alright, you know, tread is 8-1/2 inches. We're gonna hold that to this edge of the lumber and just mark this right out."

" And you can start anywhere random over here."

" Yeah."

" This becomes weight plumb."

" Yes, that's correct."

" Okay."

" And we'll just pick it up and step the whole thing down. Hold 7 to 7/8 in that line."

" Point to point."

" Right. And you just keep going right down the line."

" And we get the idea."

" Right."

" Okay. But of course, once you've already cut the first one, you might as well use it as a pattern and be assured that you're gonna have identical springers."

" Right."

" Alright. We may now----well lock the other one. And then we can get this right out of the way."

" Okay. Now, we're ready to cut. Okay, how about a hand up here guys."

" That's literally all you need to do. For now just pass them into play [unk]."

" And that's it. It's that simple."

" On a piece of strapping. Go ahead. And then while we're building the house, we don't have finished treads to walk on, but we've got the board. And this will be our temporary staircase. That's it, alright."

" Put some nails in and then we'll go up there. Ahh, it's a nice job."

" Thanks."

" And that'll serve as temporary stairs and so we're almost set to finish date."