Tips for Pouring a Concrete Slab for a Bottom Step

Working on outside decks has seemed to be a job that has found me lately. One such project in Raymond, Washington, involved raising the deck two feet.

My friend wanted the bottom step of the new deck stairs to be a concrete. Unfortunately I found this out after I had measured and designed the stairs. This a little about how I got in this situation and how I solved it.

The original deck was built with several levels with a drop down about every ten feet. Even in broad daylight the owner couldn't tell where these steps in the middle of the deck were. There is nothing so frightening as to take a step and fall because the place you are steeping is eight inches lower than what you think it is.

After several falls or near falls they asked me if I could redo the entire deck to be one level.

I disassembled the deck and then planned how to make the deck one level once I saw what I was dealing with. The deck was supported with pressure treated 4x8 beams which I determined could be reused. The were resting on concrete pads which also could be reused.

Using a level I positioned the beams where they needed to be and marked some new pressure treated 4x4's to support the beams in that position. I also used some extra 4x8's for the supports. Using some Simpson Strong tie metal BC/BCS Post Caps I fastened the new pressure treated supports to the beams. It was very similar to adding longer legs on a coffee table to make it work for a dining room table.

I then reinstalled much of the original decking material. I did have to buy some new Ultra deck to replace some of the old decking that was damaged oor too short.

Once the deck was in place i had to figure out the dimensions of the new stringers for the new stairs. The stairs were originally only two steps and went off at an angle. With the new deck being two feet higher that meant adding three more steps.

Everything was going as planned and then the owner made a trip out to the house to see the progress. She liked the fact that I had changed the stairs from being a little corner stairs to stairs that were the full length of the eight foot wide deck. She didn't like the fact that the when she stepped off the bottom step she was stepping onto the grass of the backyard. The grass was often wet and slippery.

The solution was not to change the stairs that I had done in wood but to add a step that was level with the lawn that was made of concrete. She wanted the step to be two feet by eight feet. All the other steps were one foot by eight feet.

I needed to dig down into the lawn for make a place for this bottom step. I built the form and had everything in place.

Because this was such a small area and not where a concrete truck could get lose to I had to mix the concrete bag by bag.

One of the easiest ways I found was to pour an entire 90 pound bag of pre-mixed cement into a wheelbarrow. I had several plastic milk jugs full of water nearby where I was mixing and started mixing concrete. I found that one gallon of water to one bag of cement was the ideal mix. I poured one gallon of water into the wheelbarrow with the dry cement and started mixing it together with a garden hoe.

After pushing and pulling with the hoe the concrete was just right and I tipped in all into the area where the step was going to be . I then started mixing the next bag and dumped that in too. I repeated the whole process 12 times. I then took a trowel and leveled it even with the top of the form. I let the concrete set up a little bit and then went over it with a stiff broom which make grooves it the finished surface so it wouldn't be slippery.

Three days later after the concrete was hard I added the handrails and the owner was very pleased with the results.