When I read the title and the beginning of the thread I though wood. Would even be an opportunity to add hand rails easier that way. Then I saw the steps. Could be done in wood but think that tearing it out and using new concrete would be a better idea. Hand rails ain't a bad idea either. Can see ramp which would be easier to navigate would be an issue in the winter freezing over.
Building an ADA spec ramp would be overkill, but potentially better in the long run.
I'm forbidden from putting up a ramp. I've built three for relatives and friend's parents and they all died before they got home to use them.
If wood is your thing, I'd build three regular steps at the bottom and a 3' wide deck over all the rest. I absolutely hate long steps through.
I'm wondering if we are all missing the forest for the trees.
I keep looking back at your picture, and really can't tell the perspective. It looks a little like an MC Escher drawing- the stairs appear to end at nearly the same elevation that they start.
Do you actually need a stair, or just a little demo and re-grading? What's the overall rise and run?
Could you remove the steps, re-grade, and end with a gentle sloping path?
Slash and burn,buy a couple loads of gravel and have them spread a driveway to the backdoor, a full Dumptruck wil level them nicely. Gravel to the back door is a bonus.
In the front it is about 2 1/2 feet of elevation change. It will get a bit higher when I build the front walk because in some spots I only have about one inch of dirt covering the rock the front of the house sits on. Gravel may work in the front for now. Maybe I can break up the steps and get rid of them and fill the void and make the path to the door out of a few inches of gravel for now. I would think that should give decent traction to walk on and not become a muddy mess in the winter. With the steps gone I could probably make a gentle slope to the driveway. In the 15 feet from my driveway to the back door the yard drops off almost four feet before you reach the back steps. That's going to take a lot of gravel. Eventually I want to extend the deck out that way then it would just be three steps down from the deck to the driveway. The house is really poorly laid out on the property. We have learned a lot about how not to build a house living here.
Abandon the steps where they are are pour a sidewalk on the dirt path that bypasses them to the right in the picture. Put potted plants on the slabs if the look bothers you. Remove steps when you get tired of looking at them.
itsarebuild wrote: Abandon the steps where they are are pour a sidewalk on the dirt path that bypasses them to the right in the picture. Put potted plants on the slabs if the look bothers you. Remove steps when you get tired of looking at them.
This, or something like it is kind of what I am thinking as well.
If you have the room and can make a workaround look right, it will spread the labor out.
You can try the digging and jacking, but that would only be a stop-gap with no promises of success.
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