[Pelican]

I looked at a job tonight that has an issue to deal with. The homeowner wants a set of Unilock steps to come down from a sun room on to a patio that will be built. The sun room is elevated on wooden posts, there is no foundation so there is no wall to offer support to the base on the blind side of the steps.

My thoughts are to form and pour a concrete wall similar to a foundation. This is pretty elaborate but would guarantee no movement.

Any other ideas? The height of the free space is 20".

[Ax Man]

You could keep using the unilock, so that looks uniform.

[B.lock]

Ax Man's right. You can build a wall on the backside of the stoop and Geo-grid across as you build up. Concrete is an option, but framing under the sun room could be a beyo***.
Anyone ever use foam block for stoops?

[jwholden]

Granite slabs baby!

Do it once, do it right!

[Pelican]

J W, can you elaborate on that?

The back side won't be visible once the steps are installed. I forgot to mention that these steps will be on two sides of the sunroom meaning there is a 90° angle in the stoop.

[jwholden]

Pelican,

Could you use something like these? The only prep you need to do is 6" of process and then level them. The pieces are big so you don't need to worry about mortar cracking etc. You could use a color that compliments the patio or possbly work some of the granite pavers into the patio somewhere.

[Pelican]

Here's my attempt at drawing this out on "paint".

Overhead view

[davemac]

If you want to use unilock blocks to build the steps you could use the same block to close in the back side of the stairs. This would be cheaper and easier than pouring concrete. Another idea would be to use armour stone as the back side of the stairs to close them off and use the unilock blocks to build the stairs.

[site]

We set a lot of granite steps. We also reset a lot of granite steps that others did poorly. anything higher than two steps goes on a 4" concrete slab. we leave it a quarter inch low and shim with stone dust or platic mason shims. chipping and grinding a high slab is no fun. I have never had to re-set any steps set on a slab due to settling.