blottfish -- Thanks for the pictures. I assume the white fascia board around the deck frame is PT too?? Based on the good looks of your deck project, I figure I'll stick with the PT. It will save me time and money (rather than using some sort of Azek type product). Thanks again for the help..... Oh, when your done with the project post some pictures....I'de be interested in seeing the finished product.

Hi i really appreciate your thoughtful input on this matter. The building department here seem to be a bit of a joke, as far as I'm concerned. I went there in person to talk to them about the requirements for stairs on a deck. The building inspector's secretary said you do need a permit, even for replacement steps. the building code enforcement person said technically you do, but they don't enforce this. I talked to the contractor about this and he said he has built many decks and steps in our town and never was required to have a building permit for just replacing steps. He went over to the building department after we spoke since I'm sure he felt like I thought he was doing something wrong. They told him the same thing they told me, technically requires a bp but they don't enforce. He was teed off that they told me that because it made him look bad and I agree. So...so much for the building dept here. They were kind enough to give me their specs for steps, which seem to be much looser than other things I've read. Ok, so this is what they require: Step length, minimum 36 inches. Step width, minimum 9 inches, max 11. Max riser 8and 1/4, not to vary by more than 3/8ths inch. That's all they gave me. The contractor said that because we are following the design of the original steps it's impossible to get the risers to be equi-distant from each other all the way up. So they chose to slightly alter the top and bottom steps to make it work. Does this sound feasible to you? I also was concerned about the exposed connector on the top step. He said that it's impossible to get the connectors behind the step because they weren't replacing that part of the deck, and there's no way to get them behind. How does that sound to you? We are tending to think we should just let him do some alterations, and let it go. I asked him how long he would expect these steps to last the way they are, and he said thirty years. My husband got the feeling that he wasn't all that pleased with the work that his men did. It sounded to me like he was standing behind the work.

We have been crazy busy this last week removing all the steel studs, furnace and two 50 gal water heaters from the basement to make ready for the new concrete floor so sorry I am just now getting back to here. We just finished late yesterday and we are both really sore from all that manual labor getting everything out. The company that will be putting in the concrete started at 7 a.m. this morning welding the iron that will hold the corrugated steel sheets that will hold the 4" concrete floor. When they are done with that, we will spend the next three days laying in the vapor barrier to cover the dirt and we also have to put extensions on the two sump pits. Prior to this, we had to have the OSB flooring removed and about 1 foot X 2,200 square feet of expansive soil removed, new helical piers drilled, the second sump pit installed and new perimeter trenches dug and new french drains and rock put in so this has been a horrific costly project. We have done any and all work we can do ourselves to defray costs. Thank you all for so much helpful advice...I appreciate all of it!! We did check into having tubes put into the concrete to carry heated water to heat the floors but about 80% of the floor will be carpeted and we have been told that heated floors would not be efficient with carpet. There may be some great pad to use under the carpet that provides more insulation too. There will be a tiled bath and a work/hobby room that we will put the heated mats under the tile. We may put in a high efficiency stove/fireplace in the future. I have been reading about all kinds of concrete sealers, one has tea tree oil in it which protects against mold and it seals against radon too so I think we will seal the concrete floors for an extra layer of security! We will also have this super heavy duty vapor barrier down on the soil. We live in Colorado so it can get very cold here and we also have radon issues. Back to the stair issue...I have received about 50 responses to the ad I put on Craig's List. One guy said he was experienced with stairs and it was probably a half day job and would be about $100 labor plus materials. That sounds really low but I plan to call each one back and screen them - or at least the ones who answered my ad in the way I asked them to - and the ones that look good I will have come look at the stairs and give me a bid. I realized that it doesn't make much sense to have them look at it until the concrete floor is in which will now be the second week of June.

We agreed to restain the floors to bring the shade closer to the stairs color. We will do 50% Jacobean with 50 ebony, which will tone down the very brown floor. As for risers they will get painted white. Today is a better day. I am not used to rift quarter sawn, but replacing 2000 sq ft of floor is not an option. Hopefully, it will grow on me. Maybe with the darker stain I won't mind it as much. The stairs steps is very zebra looking, but by painting the risers white that too shall tone down a bit. Is it true that the second coat of stain doesn't get absorbed as much as the initial coat. I don't want a black floor. Has anyone done the 50/50 mix?