Moving Exterior Basement Stairs and Bump Outs

[Anonymous]

Our house currently has a back porch/bonus space that goes over the basement entrance. If we bump out a few extra feet to make this bonus space (former porch) into a room, it will be impossible to enter the basement. A contractor mentioned moving the stairs. How does this work - do you keep the same amount of stairs and push them a few feet out? Do you dig deeper under the house and add more stairs (but then you end up below the door? Also what is the proper name for this? Google is coming up with nothing.

[Anonymous]

You can keep the same general layout and push the stairs directly back (path to stairs gets longer under the house). You can reroute the stairs along the back of the original house (90 degree angle, coming out onto the side yard.). You can change the location of the basement door and plan stairs from there (move basement door to side and have stairs coming up along side of house.). You can dig out a basement under the bump-out so the door is in line with the back of the bump-out and the stairs just lead up from there.

There are so many ways.

[Anonymous]

thank you!! extending the space between the stairs and the door is the solution!

[Anonymous]

Note that code has changed and if you have an older house the new stairs will need to be built with deeper treads so your new staircase will not fit in the footprint of your current one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Note that code has changed and if you have an older house the new stairs will need to be built with deeper treads so your new staircase will not fit in the footprint of your current one.

This is the big thing to be aware of. You can't just tweak a staircase; if you change it at all, the whole thing has to come up to code in terms of rise and run, head clearance, size of landing, clear space between railings, etc. It's all good and necessary for safety and comfort (says I, who has already fallen down my basement stairs), but it turns any stair-moving project into a more space-intensive, money-intensive project than you might imagine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Note that code has changed and if you have an older house the new stairs will need to be built with deeper treads so your new staircase will not fit in the footprint of your current one.

This is the big thing to be aware of. You can't just tweak a staircase; if you change it at all, the whole thing has to come up to code in terms of rise and run, head clearance, size of landing, clear space between railings, etc. It's all good and necessary for safety and comfort (says I, who has already fallen down my basement stairs), but it turns any stair-moving project into a more space-intensive, money-intensive project than you might imagine.

Same PP coming back to say I don't want to discourage you, because it can be the key to making all your other spaces work. Just be prepared for the estimate!

[Anonymous]

Moving stairs isn’t a big deal but my bonehead contractor never redid the electrical so watch out for that if that pertains to you.

[Anonymous]

We are doing this and moving our basement stairs to the side of our house and changing the location of our basement door.

[Anonymous]

I’m hoping to do this to our house as well. Right now the stairs are making the kitchen feel very small. Any idea of a ballpark cost to do a bump out and bring the stairs up to code?