Best way to repair my stairs after removing carpet gripper?

[TheoGB]

Hi,

We moved into our flat a few months back and have been gradually removing the carpet as we've gone. It's in an ex-Council block and the floors have all been concrete with bitumen tiles but when we exposed the stairs we were pleasantly surprised to find they were a mixture of what looks like pine and plywood.

However, there's carpet gripper all up them. Removing it from the step seems fine as the wood's a normal strip and there are just a few holes left but pulling the strip from the front of each step (which seems to be plywood) has ripped the front.

Here are some images:

The three stairs I exposed and tried to strip (orange dust is the old underlay disintegrating).

Damage done on the bottom step, pretty big split as you can see

Damage done on the front of the next step up:

So, what is the best way of dealing with this? I can't really clamp it down if I was to stick anything to it so can you actually pull off a layer? That sounds risky also.

Also, is there a really good method to remove the gripper after that?

Ideally we want to paint them all white.

Thanks in advance

 

[lymmranger]

You do realise that "painting them white" is not as simple as you think!

most staircases in modern houses (less than 50 years old) are constructed just like yours.
They were designed to be covered over with carpet. Older staircases were designed before carpet became popular and certainly before gripper was invented.
Older ones can look good painted (at the edges) Modern ones are usually worse than yours. With effort and paint yours will look great, but only for a short while - walking on them will crack all the filler and modern paint goes yellow very quickly, Of course most importantly by painting them in their entirety you run the risk of creating a slip hazard.

The damage to your stairs is not as bad as some I have seen - on the very latest houses the stairs are exedingly flimsly to the point that they even have stickers on them forbiding gripper to be nailed!!!!!
We recently had trouble with an MDF staircase - one of the fitters managed to split several treads from the risers - on closer inspection this (on the face of it) substantial staircase wasnt even glued it was held together with wedges and just the one nail!!!!!!!!

.........I love my 1930`s solid pine staircase after all - but even mine is too damaged to paint.

For future reference you should never lift old gripper - it never wears out and doing so can cause all sorts of damage

 

[TheoGB]

I was under the impression you buy specific paint for stairs which is, I assume, a hard-wearing gloss that doesn't yellow. I'd guess that's what's already been painted on these to begin with, which looks like it was done with the expectation of a narrow strip of carpet going down, not full width.

I've lifted three strips of gripper already so it's a bit late to not lift any . We'd rather not have carpet going down the stairs and while we realise that painted stairs could be slippy we think it will probably look best.

Thanks.

 

[lymmranger]

Ok - so you seem determined that this is the best option for you..

Firstly to lift the gripper - try VERY gently prising it from one side with an old wood chisel, slowly and gently should do the trick.

Hopefully this will just leave the nail holes to fill!

All modern paint is crap - it has been since they banned the lead.

White will quickly yellow - maybe try an off white or cream?

I would strongly advise you put a non slip additive in - maybe fine sand?

...you will get better paint advise in the Painting and Decorating part of the forum - I just know about flooring

Good luck

 

[TheoGB]

Ok - so you seem determined that this is the best option for you..

Firstly to lift the gripper - try VERY gently prising it from one side with an old wood chisel, slowly and gently should do the trick.

Hopefully this will just leave the nail holes to fill!

All modern paint is crap - it has been since they banned the lead.

White will quickly yellow - maybe try an off white or cream?

I would strongly advise you put a non slip additive in - maybe fine sand?

...you will get better paint advise in the Painting and Decorating part of the forum - I just know about flooring

Good luck

Okay.

I'm not determined but I liked the idea and have no real experience so I wanted to get a more indepth sense of what to do.

Lifting the gripper was something I tried very slowly. The problem is the nails they've used have a sort of screw tap to them (barbs, if you will) meaning they just don't pull out nicely and so on the plywood it's pretty deadly.

That's also fairly depressing about the paint. The grip aspect is something that's beginning to worry me a little. I'll discuss with my wife again.

Thanks for your help.