Concrete Stairs in Port Orchard, WA
How the job started, what our in-house crew built, and how it turned out.
01Site & challenge
The owners' Port Orchard property sits on a steep bluff above Puget Sound, with a gravel beach at the bottom and no safe way to reach it. A stairway here has to do more than carry people: it has to hold a sliding bank, shed rainwater, and stand up to salt air. The slope was terraced and the design worked out with our in-house engineering and permitting team before forms went in.
02What we built
We cut and shored the bank, set cedar posts, and built rebar-tied stepped formwork that follows the grade down to the water, with landings where the stair turns. Rebar mesh runs continuous through every tread and riser, and the stair was poured monolithically in place and broom-finished for grip in the wet. Because the site drops so steeply, drainage was detailed at every landing so runoff leaves the stair rather than undermining it. Once cured, we stripped the forms and built a code-height cedar handrail system on both sides, wrapping each landing so the run reads as one continuous piece of outdoor carpentry. The cut bank was re-planted to stabilize the slope. It is concrete work and outdoor carpentry on the same schedule.
03Outcome
In about two weeks the family gained a durable, low-maintenance concrete stair with warm cedar rails that lead straight from the yard to the Puget Sound shoreline — permitted through the City of Port Orchard and Kitsap County and built to stay put on the bluff.
