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. 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), or Nether bricks, producing four stairs per craft. Sandstone stairs are also available in the current snapshot. (You can also (with the right block) make the stair pattern starting from either the top right corner of the crafting table, or the top left corner of the crafting table.)

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.


 * 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.
 * 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 placing them on the bottom of a block.

Bugs

 * Sometimes, when the player goes into third person view while holding a stair, when the player moves back the stair will be backwards.

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, and for the different types of wooden planks, even in snapshot 12w25a.
 * Even though different variations of wooden stairs exist in 12w25a, only oak stairs can be crafted.
 * Unlike slabs, if stairs are placed upside-down, one can place torches on top.
 * Prior to 1.8, stairs' entity had the larger “item” rather than “block” size, a bug shared with cactus.