Stairs

Stairs are blocks that allow the player to change elevation without jumping. They are a more compact alternative to slabs, allowing a greater elevation change in a shorter horizontal distance.

Occurrence
Stairs occur naturally in NPC villages. Wooden Stairs make seating furniture in houses, as well as roofs for most structures in the village. Cobblestone Stairs occur in front of doors and inside churches. Cobblestone Stairs can also be found within strongholds. Sandstone Stairs can be found in Desert NPC Villages, replacing the stairs mentioned above. Nether Brick Stairs occur naturally in Nether fortresses.

Crafting
Stairs can be made using six of either wooden planks (all four types), cobblestone, bricks, stone bricks (all four types), Nether bricks, sandstone, and blocks of quartz (the last one is currently only available via snapshots after 13w02a, and is coming in the Redstone Update), producing four stairs per craft.

Unlike many wooden items, wooden stairs must be crafted entirely from one type of wood, but by the same token, they keep the type (and color) of the wood used, thus "Birch Wood Stairs" and so forth.

Usage


Aside from their given usage, stairs can be used for a number of aesthetic purposes, mostly in simulating items that are not currently present in the game.


 * Walking up stairs is faster and takes less of a toll on a players hunger bar than jumping up a slope would.
 * A popular use for stair blocks is to simulate benches or chairs. As of the Beta 1.8 update, NPC villages are generated using stairs for seats.
 * Another popular use is as roofing for homes, also seen in NPC villages but widely used by players prior to the Beta 1.8 update.
 * Just as normal stairs are used to smooth slopes in the floor, upside-down stairs can be used to smooth slopes in the ceiling. This makes it possible to create more realistic arches under bridges or in architectural buildings.
 * Brick and stone brick steps, when stacked at the end of a wall made with other brick or stone brick blocks, gives the appearance of broken masonry.
 * Stairs can be used to hide Redstone wiring, as power will go through the lower half of a stair block. With the full-sized end facing outwards, it can be used to hide wiring without placing a hole in a wall.
 * They can be used as a cheap alternative to any decorative block in the 'economical' Nether Portal.
 * Chests can be opened below stair blocks.
 * Stairs can be arranged to form windows or halls with unique properties. These openings will block light (except for the inside edge of the stairs) and fluid, but will allow entities such as items and small animals to pass through (if the opening is large enough). Openings may be made the size of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or 1 block. Arrows may pass through these openings, as of snapshot 12w23a.

Behavior
As of the Halloween Update, stairs are placed facing the player so they may be immediately climbed. This may cause problems when constructing a stair; just start at the lower end to fix this. Alternatively, you can face the top of the stairs, sneak, and place stairs at your feet while hanging onto the edge of a block to place them in the correct location while descending the stairs.

Water will flow over stairs as if it were a completely solid block. If one attempts to place a torch on top of a stair block, the torch will be placed instead on the closest available non-stair block.

Wooden stairs and fences are flammable.

Stairs can also be placed upside down by one of two methods.
 * 1) Right-clicking on the bottom side of a block.
 * 2) Right-clicking on the top half of the side of a block.

Corner Stairs
Corner Stairs were added in Snapshot 12w34a, as a test. It is not a separate block, but stairs will "auto-adjust" into corner stairs based on placement. This feature is, as Jeb_ specifies, a test, and is prone to removal or editing based on community feedback.

Bugs

 * Sometimes, when the player goes into third person view while holding a stair, when the player moves back the stair will be backwards.
 * Glitchedbirchstairs.pngimes, placing a stair may result in the placed stair (and possibly others nearby) to glitch graphically and appear extremely malformed. This is strictly a graphical glitch and the stairs can still be used. It should fix itself by quitting out and playing the world again.
 * 2012-08-04 13.01.41.pngs will occasionally be still usable but have its block type hover above it.
 * On Minecraft Xbox360 Edition, sometimes when breaking stone brick stairs, mossy or cracked stone bricks will be dropped instead of regular stone brick.
 * On Minecraft 1.4.7 light - coming from behind - can be seen coming through oak-wood stairs.

Trivia

 * Placing 6 Mossy Stone Brick, 6 cracked stone brick, or 6 chiseled stone brick in a crafting box will only make stone brick stairs, not mossy/cracked/chiseled stone brick Stairs. The behavior is the same for the different types of sandstone.
 * In 12w25a, only oak stairs could be crafted, regardless of the plank type. This was fixed as of 12w26a.
 * Unlike slabs, if stairs are placed upside-down, one can place torches on top (Only applicable to snapshots earlier than 12w25a)
 * Prior to 1.8, stairs' entity had the larger “item” rather than “block” size, a bug shared with cactus.
 * In 12w34a, with the addition of sideways stairs, they are identical to the sideways stairs mod from Beta 1.7. and Adventurecraft's Sideways Stairs.