Case Study · SB 721 · CSLB #1060736
Trex Stair & Balcony Installation — Apartment Building, Oakland
From the patio the stair looked like one well-kept assembly. From underneath it was an open wood frame draining straight onto the doorway below it.
Deck Repair & RestorationProject facts
- Location
- Oakland, CA
- Service
- Deck Installation
- Property
- Two-story apartment building
- Units
- 6
- Elevated elements
- One exterior stair run and the upper landing it serves
- Client
- Owner / property management company
- Scope
- Tear-off of painted wood treads, landing decking and guards, stringer repair and new base connectors, Trex composite treads and decking, powder-coated aluminum guardrails
- Timeline
- 1 week on site
- Completed
- Q2 2026
- Budget range
- $12k–$20k
01 The situation
The challenge
Everything on this side of the building was painted redwood — stringers, posts, treads, guards, and the horizontal slats screening the landing at the top. From the patio it read as one uniform, maintained assembly. From underneath it read differently. The landing had no soffit and no waterproofing: gapped boards over open joists, sitting directly above the entry to a ground-floor unit, so every rain went through the floor and onto the doorway below. The bottom tread had already been patched once with a bare board nobody had got round to painting. And where the stringers met the concrete pad the paint was lifting off in sheets, which is what paint does when the wood under it has been wet for years.
02 Execution
What we did
The frame was worth keeping, so the work was aimed at everything around it:
Surveyed the assembly from below while the framing was still fully exposed, and priced from what was visible rather than from assumptions
Stripped the treads, landing decking and painted wood guards, and cut the stringers back to sound wood where the notches had gone soft
Re-set the stair on new base connectors over a new concrete pad, and rebuilt the landing deck on the repaired framing
Laid Trex composite treads and landing decking and set powder-coated aluminum guards on the stair, the landing and the return
03 Outcome
The result
The frame that was worth keeping was kept. The stringers, posts and landing rim are the same members — cut back where they had gone soft, re-set on new hardware at the bottom and repainted. What changed is everything a resident touches and everything the weather lands on: composite treads and landing decking that never need repainting, and aluminum guards in place of the slat screen and the flat cap board that had been serving as a handrail. The SB 721 items on the stair and on the landing closed together, three months after the survey that raised them.
Results at a glance
- Stair treads and landing decking replaced in Trex composite over the existing repaired framing
- Painted wood guards and the slatted landing screen replaced with powder-coated aluminum
- Stringers cut back to sound wood and re-set on new base connectors over a new concrete pad
- Stair maintenance reduced to washing — no sanding, no repainting of the walking surfaces
What the client received
- SB 721 closure covering the stair run, the landing and the guards
- Trex manufacturer warranty plus our workmanship warranty
- Photo record of the stringers and bearings taken before the new treads went on
- Survey photographs kept in the file alongside the completion set
- Maintenance schedule running through to the next inspection cycle
Transformation
Before & After
The exterior stair
The building corner with the stair and landing
On site
Project Photos
“The report went in in March and I let it sit, because from the yard the stair looked fine. The photo of the bottom of the stringers is what moved it.”
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