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 naturally occur in NPC Villages. Cobblestone stairs are located in front of doors while wooden stairs are located inside houses, forming chair-like structures. Wooden stairs are also used in the roofs. Cobblestone stairs can also be found in tunnels of Strongholds. And nether brick stairs can be found in the Nether as of 1.9 prerelease 3

Crafting
Stairs can be made from six wooden planks, six cobblestone, six bricks, six Stone Bricks or six Nether Bricks, producing four stairs per craft. Upon destroying the block after placement, it will yield only one of the original material.

Up to version 1.8.1, Stone Brick Stairs could drop one of either Mossy Stone Brick or Cracked Stone Brick when broken.

Usage
Aside from their obvious 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 1.7.1 Beta 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 1.8 Beta update.
 * Brick and stone brick, when stacked at the end of a wall made with other brick or stone brick blocks, gives the appearance of broken masonry.

Behavior
As of Alpha 1.2.0 (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.

Previously, Wooden Stairs would not burn, but as of Beta 1.6, Wooden Stairs and Fences have become flammable.

There is a currently known bug where the top of a brick and stone brick stair is black due to a lighting error. It is still visible in 1.8.1.

History



 * At some viewing angles, hovering the cursor over the stair block would make the black outline flicker, making mining the stair block glitchy, and the block behind it would often be mined instead.
 * Stairs used to face a direction automatically when placed. They would attempt to face a block adjacent to the stairs, so as to create a climbable surface towards that block. However, this was often more annoying than helpful, and was therefore changed to be placed facing the player.
 * From Alpha version 1.2.0_02 to Beta 1.5, stairs had the odd property of being transparent to light; when placed one or more spaces above the ground with air beneath, sunlight or other light sources would shine through and light the blocks beneath/behind the stairs exactly as if nothing opaque were present between them. Other atmospheric effects such as snowfall did not penetrate stair blocks, making them an unusually effective material for creating roofing which kept weather out, but still let daylight in. Snow could not accumulate on top of stair blocks, grass was able to grow on the block directly underneath a stair block, and grass wouldn't disappear if a stair block was placed on top of it. Any stair block placed in Alpha 1.2.0_02 to Beta 1.5 would keep this property in later versions until it or an adjacent block is changed or removed.
 * In Beta 1.6, the icon for stairs was reversed, however nothing else to the properties of stairs was changed.
 * Brick Stairs, Stone Brick Stairs, and Nether Brick Stairs were added in the Adventure Update.

Bugs



 * Using Stone Brick Stairs, it is possible to mine three different types of Stone Brick Blocks depending on the direction the player is facing while placing them:

Note: This bug has been fixed in Beta 1.9. This bug applies to Beta 1.8.1. This is due to the stairs' damage value (representing the direction it's facing) being reused in the dropped block's damage value (representing the type of stone brick, see Data values).

Trivia

 * Stone Stairs are "harvested" in 3 seconds with a pickaxe, but 12 seconds with any other tool (or hands).
 * Placing 6 Mossy Stone Brick or 6 Cracked Stone Brick in a crafting box will only make Stone Brick Stairs not Mossy/Cracked Stone Brick Stairs.
 * Endermen cannot move stairs.
 * Using an axe on wooden stairs does not harvest any faster than your hands.