stair treads and risers

[toolguy1000]

i am in the home stretch (hopefully) of finishing a basement rec room. the existing stairs are painted pine, absolutely nothing fancy. the existing treads absolutely CANNOT be removed so i will be laminating an oak product over them. the risers are to be painted. anyone have any first hand experience with either of these products:

http://alexandriamoulding.com/?page=SimpleTread

http://youngmanufacturing.com/products/retrotread

both of these are unfinished products. the alexandia moulding product is a 1/16" laminated oak product with a core that is various types of wood, but not plywood. the retrotread product by young manufacturing appears to be solid oak. the alexandria product includes an oak veneered riser overlay where i would need to provide a riser overlay for the retrotread product. as the risers are definately going to be painted, the oak riser is of little interest to me.

any first hand experiences would be appreciated.

[iceman61]

I just used a similar product from Lowes although it was a new install & not a retrofit. 1" x 8" x 4' riser, and the tread was 1 1/4" thick. Appears to be the exact same thing you are looking at. Make sure that you glue as you trim nail or screw(hidden) it down or they will creak & slap together. Trust me

[conscience]

I don't know if we used either of these but I helped a buddy of mine do this to his basement. They installed fairly easily - just like putting in new treads. I can't speak to durability because he sold the house a couple of years later.

The real trick is getting all the riser heights to match-ish. You are adding a full 5/8" to the height of the bottom riser and subtracting that amount from the top riser while the rest of the treads will maintain their current rise.

I watched one of the installation videos and it didn't mention how to address that. If your steps were done based on a bare concrete floor, adding a floor covering to the basement floor, which I assume you did, would make up some of the bottom difference.

You should be fine, unless you are getting it inspected. It's been some time but I believe there can be no more than 3/8" difference between the shortest and tallest riser and no more than 1/4" difference between consecutive risers. Bigger differences than that can lead to just catching your toe on the nose of a tread.

And like iceman61 said, use plenty of glue, especially in a tread over tread application.

Just out of curiosity, why can't you pull up the treads?

Jeremy

[toolguy1000]

Just out of curiosity, why can't you pull up the treads?
Jeremy

because of the narrownesss of the basement stairs in this 90 YO house, a non-structurall wall sits atop the treads (2x on the flat). had i the foresight to anticipate this stair tread issue (the original plan was to carpet the stairs, but oak treads will match an upstairs staircase), i would have pulled the rough treads when i was building the wall, built the wall atop the stringer and then replaced the treads. now that the wall is insulated, sheetrocked and inspected, that's not going to happen. so this is kind of a last minute decision that can't be done the way i'd prefer because of my lack of anticipation previously. hence the retrotread approach rather than full dimension oak treads.

[LCHIEN]

lowes was advertising for a wood tread and riser option to refinish stairs. I think it was in a recent DIY magazine they sent out - said to ask a Lowes associate for help.

[JimD]

I did something like you are thinking of in our Pittsburgh house. I used this flooring for most of each tread:

http://www.launstein.com/launstein_plainsawn.html

It is 3/8 thick solid wood, I used oak. I would be a little worried about hardwood plywood. I have a laminated hardwood flooring in my basement and it is less durable than the hardwood flooring in the rest of the house. When you drop something on it, it dents more easily (the poplar plys are softer than oak). The Launstein flooring is hard oak through and through.

To put this in, I cut each softwood tread off flush with the riser. That was a pain. Then I put three strips of 3 inch flooring on the tread and added a custom solid oak nosing piece I made of 1 inch oak. It got three Large finish nails to fasten it to the softwood tread + glue including on the groove for the flooring. I then put an oak cove moulding under the tread. I worried about the nosing pieces but they didn't move.

I spackled the risers and painted them. The plywood was pretty low grade but they were fine after some work.

The staircase helped sell the house. This was for the main stairs in the house connecting the first floor to the second. I used an oak post at the bottom, oak handrail all the way up, and painted spindles. Looked pretty much like an oak staircase.

Jim

[cabinetman]

I would go with the solid wood versus the laminated.

.

[Carpenter96]

Stairs

Hi there, this is just information and not a judgement. I am a carpenter and one of my specialties is Stairs and many studies have been done that show a difference of as little as 1/8" between adjacent risers is enough to cause people to trip, and the top of the stairs is not the place you want it to happen. The building codes are the minimum standard. We always go with best building practice which is to have adjacent risers equal and unit rise plus unit run should fall between 17" and 18".Total rise should not have an actual rise difference of more than 1/8". If things are worth doing they are worth doing right. Do your stairs now meet the code for stair width now that you have built a wall on top of part of them? Regards Bob

[iceman61]

I would go with the solid wood versus the laminated.

I agree 100%.

On another note, you can also find a landing tread that can be installed where the top of the stairs meets the 1st floor level. If your stair treads are to be open on one or two sides near the last few lower steps, you can also purchase a nose-over add on that will extend the step reveal (round nose-over) around the corner to the side of the exposed treads.

[JoeyGee]

I may be picturing this wrong so ignore it if so. Ignore it if it's just a dumb suggestion, too.

I know you said you can't remove the old treads because they are under a wall. How about using the oft-discussed HF multi-funtion tool (or other if you have it) and cutting the treads off flush with the wall, removing them and the putting in new? Not perfect, and may not be real easy or clean, but sounds better than adding on to the treads in place.

[conscience]

The old wall on the treads game, huh? Actually I have never run across that one before. Just a thought here, but could you build a stepped knee wall on the bottom side of the treads directly under the non-structural wall?

Then you could cut the treads out flush with the wall, install a new stringer and skirt and get your rise right. Not to belabor the point, but that is a big difference in riser height at the top of (and potentially bottom of) your stairs.

I did a job once in a big new house. The front steps were poured concrete. The second riser height was a hair over 3/8" taller than the rest. I can't tell you how many times people caught their toe on that step. It didn't pass final inspection. The inspector grazed his toe on it as well. Otherwise he never would have looked at it.

Jeremy

[tommyt654]

I agree with Bob(carpenter96) on this one. You'll regret the day you change the height on these treads as they'll constantly trip folks up and far worse maybe set you up for a lawsuit if someones becomes injured if they are not up to code. Check with your county and see what the specs are and proceed from there, but I would just cut down along the face of that wall and tear out the old one ,put in a tread support against that wall and nail in some new oak treads if you desire oak or simply strip the paint off the old pine ones you'll have

[toolguy1000]

I used an oak post at the bottom, oak handrail all the way up, and painted spindles. Looked pretty much like an oak staircase.

Jim

with any luck, that's what our stairs will look like.

[toolguy1000]

Do your stairs now meet the code for stair width now that you have built a wall on top of part of them? Regards Bob

there's a new 3/4" floor over the old (really beat to sh!t original pine floor), so there was a 3/4" height difference from the landing floor to the first tread elative to the other treads. the 5/8" of the retrotread will reduce that to ~1/8". and since the original stairs are non-conforming, the bulding inspector is being as undersdtanding as he can be.

[toolguy1000]

IHow about using the oft-discussed HF multi-funtion tool (or other if you have it) and cutting the treads off flush with the wall, removing them and the putting in new?

i used a ridgid multitool to help remove the exiting pine tread nosings. there's no way i would want to try to cut through a 1" thick 10.5" wide pine tread with a multi tool flush with a wall. i'd be there for days as those multi tools seem (at least mine does) to cut very slowly. if anyone knows of a way tomake a multi tool cut faster, please fill me in.

as to rise differentials, adding a consistent 5/8" to each tread only affects the first and last riser. fortunately, the overfloor on the landing (top of stairs), which created an 8 3/4" rise to the landing, will get reduced to 8 1/8", bringing it closer to the rises of the other treads, which vary from 7 1/4" to 8 1/8" (guess in the 20s, building codes weren't what they are now). as there is no change to the stair structure, and existing rise discrepancies are being reduced, the lamination would have no impact on the building permit.