I’m going to look at a job tomorrow for a woman who wants to go from carpeted stairs to nice oak treads. I’m assuming that I won’t have to rebuild the whole staircase to correct for the added rise on the bottom tread and reduced rise on the top tread.
Am I right or wrong?
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Replies
Remove the old tread (could be Doug fir or spruce). Install oak tread. Then no height adjustment needed.
To do the riser..... Get 1/4 oak ply and glue to the exsisting riser.
shim the new treads (I like ply) to be the same thickenss as the old 2x treads and the the new risers will cover up everything else.
If you are going to remove the entire tread and replace, including the top landing, you shouldn't have a problem. Sometimes, the old treads are let into the skirts, in which case removing them is problematic. In this case, you may want to chisel off the existing nosing and skin w/oak. However, this will result in a difference in riser heights at the top and bottom (unless they are replacing flooring at the first and second floors as well).
it'll be a litle more difficult if the stringers are boxed and routed. It's not easy to remove the treads from stairs like that. If thats the case, you can cut hte nose off, and use a 1/2" thick "cap tread". The change in the height is minimal.
You might have some adjusting to do height-wise, if the floor at the bottom or the top or the stairs is or isn't carpeted. You might have a 1/2" too much or too little depending.
I did this at my folks place and found that under the carpet was about the nastiest looking plywood I've seen. You may need to cover the risers too. In my case the plywood under the carpet for the risers would have never looked good painted. I used decent, paintable 1/4 ply to cover the risers - it also covers up the new oak tread seam at the back.
The hardest part for me was making the sides of the tread fit without having gaps between the side and the stair skirt-board. (unless you want to re-cut the entire skirt board - no thanks!)
Most likely each stair is not perfectly 90 degrees. There's a jig you can buy, or make to fit into each tread location. For a good fit, each tread might be very slightly trapezoid or parallelogram in shape, so each tread is it's own custom fit.
my 2 cents. Good luck!