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Entries, stairs, and doors

A zero-step entry that does not send water into the house

The best entrance is flush with the walk. Getting there means fixing the grade and the sill, not just removing a step and hoping the rain stays out.

Livable Later editorial team · Updated November 1, 2026 · About 8 minutes

A zero-step entry means a person can move from the walk into the house without lifting a foot over a step or a tall sill. Visitability advocates, starting with the work associated with Eleanor Smith's Concrete Change campaign, treated one zero-step entrance as a basic feature of a house someone could visit or live in with a wheelchair, alongside a door with clear width and a bathroom on that floor. Some cities have written a version of that into local rules for new houses. Most existing houses were built with a step because the step keeps water out. Taking the step away without replacing the water strategy is how a dry house becomes a wet one.

This is site work and door work. It is not a medical device. If the person cannot walk the distance from the car, a flush door does not fix that distance. It only removes the step at the end of it.

Find the rise before you pick a door

Measure from the interior finished floor down to the ground at every door, not only the formal front door. The side door, the garage door into the kitchen, and a slider to a deck often have less rise because the house was built into a slope. The best zero-step candidate is the door where the outside ground is already closest to the inside floor, and where a walk can reach it without crossing a steep side yard.

Write down three numbers: the interior floor height, the current exterior grade at the door, and the height of the existing sill. The difference between interior floor and a new exterior landing has to end up small enough to bridge with a threshold, not with a step. The threshold guide uses the ADA figures as a benchmark: a vertical change up to one-quarter inch, a bevel up to one-half inch. If you still have three inches after you regrade, you do not have a zero-step door. You have a shorter step, and you should either keep regrading or switch to the ramp worksheet.

Look at which way the ground falls. Water has to move away from the house for at least several feet. The usual site rule, in many residential codes and in ordinary good practice, is to slope the soil away from the foundation, often about 6 inches of drop over the first 10 feet, though your inspector may quote a different local number. A landing that is flat against the siding, with the yard sloping back toward the door, will put rain and meltwater into the wall. That is the failure mode of amateur zero-step work. The landing can be nearly level for the person's feet, and the ground beyond it still has to fall away. Those are two different slopes. A 1:48 cross slope or a 1:20 running slope can shed water and still be a walking surface under ADA section 403. Use the gentle slope. Do not build a bowl.

Bridges, not cuts, when the floor is low

If the interior floor is only a few inches above grade, you can often raise the walk with concrete, pavers, or a short framed landing and meet a new low-profile sill. The door may need to be rebuilt: a standard sill plus a threshold plus a mat can quietly add an inch you just removed. Specify an accessible sill, a door sweep that seals, and flashing that turns water out. The carpenter and the waterproofer have to agree. A pretty flush patio door with no pan flashing is a leak with a view.

If the interior floor is far above grade, raising the entire walk to it means a long slope or a ramp from the street, which is the ramp problem again. Lowering the interior floor at the door is sometimes possible in a slab house by cutting and re-pouring, and rarely sensible in a wood floor because you are cutting the structure that holds the wall. An addition with a new door at the new grade can be cheaper than fighting the old door. Price both. AARP's 2015 cost piece described a simple concrete walk up to a door at about $3,000 in one market, and much more when retaining walls and driveway changes entered the job. Those are dated examples. Your grade beam is your price.

Garage entries are the sleeper. The garage slab is often closer to the kitchen floor than the front yard is. A low threshold from the garage, a level pad beside the parked car, and a door with real clear width can be the zero-step entrance even when the front door keeps its stoop for everyone else. The garage still has to be a place the person can walk: light, a floor that is not a slick painted slope, and no storage in the path. A zero-step door into a dark garage full of boxes is not an entrance.

The landing, the door swing, and the package bench

The outside landing should be nearly level and large enough to stand on while the door opens, including a storm door. A person using a walker needs the walker on the landing with them, not on the step that used to be there. A wheelchair needs a flat spot to sit while the door swings, which is the same maneuvering idea as ADA section 404, even though that section is written for public buildings. Tape the door swing on the ground. If the storm door and the main door both swing out, you need more depth than a single slab square.

A small bench or a shelf at the door is on the NIA home checklist for a reason. Bags get set down so one hand can find the key and the other can hold a cane. Without a place to put the bag, the bag goes on the walker, the walker tips, or the bag stays in the hand that should be on the rail. The bench has to be off the swing of the door and off the walking line. It is not a second obstacle.

House numbers and a light belong at this door if it becomes the door people use. The NIA checklist suggests light sensors that turn on as you approach. A switch inside only helps on the way out. Put a switched or sensor light outside, shielded so it does not blind the person looking down at the sill. The winter guide covers ice on that new flat landing. Flat concrete holds water if you forgot the slight slope away from the door. Specify it.

Drainage details that keep the guarantee

Ask the builder to draw the water path. Where does the roof water land? A downspout that empties onto the new landing will ice it and flood the sill. Extend the leader to daylight or to a drain. Where does the landing itself drain? A trench drain or a slot drain at the outer edge of a flush patio door is a common way to catch water before it reaches the track. The drain has to have somewhere to go. Connecting it to the footing drain, if you have one, is a plumber's detail, not a guess.

The door pan, a waterproof membrane under the sill that laps to the weather barrier, is what saves the subfloor when wind pushes rain at the door. If your contractor cannot describe the pan, you are not done hiring. This is the same discipline as the shower membrane in the bathroom guide: the visible finish is not the waterproofing.

Sloped site, retaining wall, and guardrail questions show up together. If you build the walk up two feet to meet the floor, the edge of that walk may need a guard the way a deck would, under the residential code, once it is more than a certain height above grade. A flush entrance on the uphill side avoids that. An uphill entrance on the downhill side creates it. Choose the door that does not invent a cliff.

Permits matter because you may be changing grade near a property line, a septic field, or a utility. Call the building department and, if you have them, the utility locators before you dig. A zero-step landing poured over a gas line is not a shortcut.

A site checklist

Pick the door with a tape, not from the curb appeal

  • Measure rise at every exterior door, including the garage and the side door.
  • Choose the door where grade is already closest, and where water can still fall away from the foundation.
  • Draw the landing, the door swings, and a bench off the walking line.
  • Specify a low sill, a sill pan, and a drain for the landing. Name them in the contract.
  • Keep the final vertical change at the sill within a quarter inch, or bevel up to a half inch.
  • Light the outside of the door. Move the downspout off the landing.
  • If the rise is still more than a short step after regrading, stop and design a 1:12 ramp or a lift instead of a steep "almost."

Visitability is a planning idea, not a promise that every 1950 house can be dug out. One usable entrance, one usable bathroom, and doors that a walker can pass will do more than a perfect front door that opens onto the only stair in the house. Pair this work with the path from the car so the flush door is not stranded at the top of a broken walk.

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