Installing hardwood stairs

[Roger Barga]

We currently have carpeted stairs leading to our basement and plan to replace the carpet in the basement. I am considering upgrading the carpeted stairs to cherry hardwood to match the wood that runs throughout the house. Naively, perhaps, it would seem I could simply remove the existing carpet and padding and attach ¾” cherry as the tread plate over the plywood substrate, using glue with a few pin nails, and use thinner cherry or maple material as the riser plate.

A question for those of who have actually done this – am I missing anything or is there something else I need to plan for or do in order to upgrade from carpet to hardwood stairs?

thank you,
roger

[Dan Friedrichs]

I did this recently. A few things to note:

1. They don't usually build carpet-grade stairs very well. Mine were only a few years old and already squeaked like crazy. Under the carpet was a 1" particle board tread and 1/4" plywood riser. Stapled together, no glue. I ripped out the risers (except for 2 that I could get to easily) and replaced them with 3/4" plywood, slathered with construction adhesive and liberally screwed together. No more squeaks, and no more bounce.

2. The thickness of your new tread has to be roughly the same as your carpet+pad was, otherwise your first and last stairs will be off. IIRC, most building codes require that the "rise" of each stair be within 3/8" of the rest of the stairs. This may prevent you from using 3/4" thick cherry material, as your carpet is not likely that thick. However, a thinner (5/16") engineered product would work perfectly.

3. Most carpeted stairs have a bullnose on the tread. You'll want to hack this off with a reciprocating saw (or something).

4. I would recommend an engineered and prefinished product for this. Dealing with wood movement issues would make this quite a pain...

5. Use liberal amounts of PL400 subfloor adhesive on everything. This will prevent squeaks, as it has a little "give" to it.

[Jeff Dunlap]

when i did my stairs, they weren't carpetd but were intended to be and i ripped the crappy treads and risers they put down and glued and nailed my new treads and risers directly to the stringers. I put riser behind the read and butted the tread up to it, it made i nicer joint and it was easier to control the building code of no more than 3/16" difference in overhang. As the other poster said the height toleranes can be off and the treads need to be the same height throughout the stair run with in tolerences. The crappy treads the used were 3/4" material, and since the treads were 1" thick i was in tolerence by nailing right to the stringers. I think that how to do this is something you wont know until you rip out the carpet and start. Just remeber to look and building codes and know the tolerences so that you can plan accordingly.

[Roger Barga]

Dan, Jeff: Thanks for the information - I can see I will have to check the building codes and take a look under the carpet to see what I am getting into.

roger

[Richard Wolf]

Roger, here is a product that we use to resurface old staircases. The treads are not cheap, but well finished and well made. Care must be taken installing them, but they look great when finished.

http://www.nustair.com/

Richard

[Will Rowland]

I did the same 6-7 years ago in my old house and echo the comments above. In my case, I used 3/4" x 2 1/4" (unfinished) red oak t&g flooring and matching bullnose pieces.

Mine were carpeted beforehand, and to make each step level, they used varying combinations of construction adhesive, wood scraps and carpet padding on top of 2 x 10s that had apparently been previously used as the concrete forms. It was a mess.

We ripped out a couple of the steps on each side of the landings so I could reset them to achieve proper, level, correctly spaced treads. At the time, in Houston, it was min rise 7 3/8" and max 7 7/8" over the staircase. I also had to plane/sand a lot of treads flat and level to prep for the flooring. In retrospect, it would hae been easier to rip out all the steps and rebuild the treads/stringers correctly from the start.

In the end, though, the hardwood steps were just a huge and worthwhile improvement over carpet. Interestingly, the house just sold again, and I saw from the listing photos that the steps look to be holding up well: