Restoring 2 terribly installed stair treads and risers

bobbidill · 22 Jun 2019

The builders have made a real botch of the bottom 2 stairs on a staircase they installed, as the attached photo's show. This happened because the staircase they ordered was too short and didn't reach the wall at the bottom, leaving an awkward gap. They told us that it would be an easy fix to extend the bottom 2 stairs and risers to fill this gap and that we wouldn't even notice! The carpentry they employed to do this was poor and these stairs, which they knew won't be carpeted look dreadful. My question is can we replace these 2 stair treads and risers, so that they're like the rest of the staircase and if so how? Other suggestions of course welcomed too. Thank you all!

foxhole · 22 Jun 2019

You could overlay with single pieces of ply .

bobbidill · 22 Jun 2019

foxhole said:
You could overlay with single pieces of ply .

Thanks Foxhole, we'd thought of that but as we want to varnish (non-slip) the treads they'd look different to the other treads.

big-all · 22 Jun 2019

nightmare
if living with it is the only option i would be tempted to make a custom built stepped book shelve unit to make a feature off it just covering the join and no more
i assume the bottom treads are perhaps 20mm narrower already between string and cut edge because off the joint in the string??

otherwise its secure the string to the wall remove and reform the bottom two steps from scratch

foxhole · 23 Jun 2019

Why would varnish make them look different ?

bobbidill said:
Thanks Foxhole, we'd thought of that but as we want to varnish (non-slip) the treads they'd look different to the other treads.

big-all · 23 Jun 2019

foxhole said:
Why would varnish make them look different ?

ply is rolled off the log so its grain is unnaturally wide apart
unless off course your talking about expensive faced ply that is slices rather than rolled off

^woody^ · 23 Jun 2019

foxhole said:
You could overlay with single pieces of ply .

How does this go around the nosing?

^woody^ · 23 Jun 2019

Can't the builders change the staircase at their expense?

HERTS P&D · 23 Jun 2019

Carpet the stair case.

Andy

John D v2.0 · 23 Jun 2019

well, in my opinion it looks awful, however I'm assuming from the story that the builders assumed/hoped it was going to be carpeted or some other flooring on top. That's the only way I could expect that modification not to be noticable. Presumably it's all structurally sound.

Even if they should know that it was "finished" with the wood grain showing, then there's probably many hundred of pounds riding on this from them, and they're not going to have to live with it looking like that, so it's in their interests to hold out and tell you it's fine for as long as possible (apart from their reputation) So if you do want it replaced with proper treads then you're going to have to be extremenly firm!

Tigercubrider · 23 Jun 2019

One option is for THEM to pay for a cladding kit that lets you cover the treads with a hardwood and is made to measure or made slightly bigger and they trim

foxhole · 23 Jun 2019

^woody^ said:
How does this go around the nosing?

Cut off nosing, ply , replace nosing .

^woody^ · 23 Jun 2019

foxhole said:
Cut off nosing, ply , replace nosing .

Then the nosing is different, and the joint visible, no?

foxhole · 24 Jun 2019

^woody^ said:
Then the nosing is different, and the joint visible, no?

Not when I did mine .

bobbidill · 24 Jun 2019

big-all said:
nightmare
if living with it is the only option i would be tempted to make a custom built stepped book shelve unit to make a feature off it just covering the join and no more
i assume the bottom treads are perhaps 20mm narrower already between string and cut edge because off the joint in the string??

otherwise its secure the string to the wall remove and reform the bottom two steps from scratch

It is indeed a nightmare Big-All. We thought of a shelf, but it'll close the space off too much. The joint's around 10mm, although I'm not quite sure I understood your question!

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Restoring 2 terribly installed stair treads and risers

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