fitting carpet gripper on a stairs

mikeybowler · 22 Nov 2010

Hi,

When fitting carpet grippers to the stairs should they be glue/screwed instead of nailed? The reason I ask is that I read a label fixed to the stairs on a new build house saying that the gripper should be glued as nailing them could damage/loosen the stairs/treads.

what are peoples thoughts?

Mike

IJWS15 · 23 Nov 2010

Glue them, Nailing on the riser can loosen the fixings between the riser and the tread, then the stairs creak.

OK if you can get to the back of the stairs to refix the riser, if you can't . . . . . . .

lymmranger · 23 Nov 2010

IJWS15 said:
Glue them, Nailing on the riser can loosen the fixings between the riser and the tread, then the stairs creak.

OK if you can get to the back of the stairs to refix the riser, if you can't . . . . . . .

Hmmm - not necessarily, if you glue them you are stuck with them forever, you will not be able to remove them without trashing the stairs.

Modern houses have extremely fragile stairs, I cannot believe just how fragile - certainly cant see them lasting too long! They then fix these "use no nails" stickers on - how the hell are we supposed to fix the grippers? - incorrectly secured grippers mean a poorly secured carpet and that equals a householder descending the stairs much quicker than planned

Our fitters use a powerful stapler rather than glue, it seems to work Ok - use ring shank staples though!!!!

pacco · 25 Nov 2010

hi all, we nail on older stairs on new builds we staple

IJWS15 · 26 Nov 2010

lymmranger said:
IJWS15 said:

Glue them, Nailing on the riser can loosen the fixings between the riser and the tread, then the stairs creak.

OK if you can get to the back of the stairs to refix the riser, if you can't . . . . . . .

Click to expand...

Hmmm - not necessarily, if you glue them you are stuck with them forever, you will not be able to remove them without trashing the stairs.

Modern houses have extremely fragile stairs, I cannot believe just how fragile - certainly cant see them lasting too long! They then fix these "use no nails" stickers on - how the hell are we supposed to fix the grippers? - incorrectly secured grippers mean a poorly secured carpet and that equals a householder descending the stairs much quicker than planned

Our fitters use a powerful stapler rather than glue, it seems to work Ok - use ring shank staples though!!!!

We have those fragile stairs, the original carper fitter (before we bought the house) nailed the grippers to the risers and knocked the ricers off the fixings and the stairs started creaking. When i built a wall to create a cupboard I took the plasterboard down and screwed the risers back

I would not take the risk of any impacts on the risers unless I could get to the back.

martinwinlow · 24 Mar 2013

Can't believe this is causing so much confusion - OK, it would help if the stair manufacturers label said "Don't nail - use Glue OR Screws" but it's not like screws are a new invention! And before 'the professionals' start whinging (like here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WkdYsuScA ) there gadgets called screw-guns (or cordless screwdrivers if you want). Again, hardly new. Nice to see I have been vindicated - I hadn't heard of the 'no-nail' labels but it makes sense... most new stairs use MDF - for risers at least - and they just won't take being bashed at with a hammer. Bolstering and knee-kicking must be done with care too. I expect the cheapo stair manufacturers expect the carpet to just be stapled on these days - a rubbish finish to a rubbish product - but that's progress for you! MW

lymmranger · 24 Mar 2013

martinwinlow said:
Can't believe this is causing so much confusion - OK, it would help if the stair manufacturers label said "Don't nail - use Glue OR Screws" but it's not like screws are a new invention! And before 'the professionals' start whinging (like here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WkdYsuScA ) there gadgets called screw-guns (or cordless screwdrivers if you want). Again, hardly new. Nice to see I have been vindicated - I hadn't heard of the 'no-nail' labels but it makes sense... most new stairs use MDF - for risers at least - and they just won't take being bashed at with a hammer. Bolstering and knee-kicking must be done with care too. I expect the cheapo stair manufacturers expect the carpet to just be stapled on these days - a rubbish finish to a rubbish product - but that's progress for you! MW

martin - if you watch that video you will note that he didn't really hit it that hard.
You are right - It is when he bolsters the carpet in that he does the damage, this is because he will have to hit the bolster REALLY hard to ensure the carpet is held properly. This process can and often does split the join between tread and riser. Most budget staircases are a ply riser and MDF tread these have no more than 4 and usually 2 ring shank pins which are again fired by gun
This cheap (shoddy) method of construction makes a carpet fitters job nigh on impossible. I suspect the stairs wont last long just from the stress of walking on them
The staircase he was fitting was a proper one!!!!!!!
By the way this is quite an old post you have "woken up"

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fitting carpet gripper on a stairs

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