New steps a must!

When we first looked at our current home, we thought it was strange that the owners had a sliding glass door with no steps outside of it. To Jeff and I it was not a big deal since there was a front door and back door that we would mainly be using. Really the sliding glass door just leads to the driveway and garage and I don’t even think you can lock it from the outside. So besides letting air in the house, we wouldn’t use the door much. We figured at some point we would get steps put in. Well, our insurance company came out and decided that we needed to get the steps sooner than later. They told us that having the door there with no steps was a hazard. How did the previous owners get away with not being required to put steps in? My guess is that they were the ones to put in the sliding glass door, maybe there was just a window there before. And probably their insurance company never knew they put it in!

We heard about precast concrete steps (I think from our realtor) as a good option to go outside of the sliding glass door. They sound good to me because they are manufactured as one solid piece with no gaps anywhere for water to leak in and cause them to deteriorate. Here is an example of what they look like:

Today we had a meeting with Gary from Countywide Concrete Step Company. He determined that three steps that are four feet wide will fit best outside of the door. He gave us a quote of about $500 for the steps which includes tax and installation. Not bad! Not knowing the price of the precast steps, I was expecting more like $1,000! I would rather wait until spring time to put these in, but due to the insurance company’s deadline, we went ahead and scheduled the installation. The steps will be put in next Tuesday, October 13th! I will have to post a photo of how they look. I am excited about getting these in, just not happy that we had to rush to do it because of Nationwide!