What You Should Know
About Your Hardwood Staircase
Before Installing

Hardwood staircase installation to your home is a great investment. It gives your house great character. And ties your main level to the other areas.

Your staircase with the right appearance, it will invite your guess to the rest of your home.

Sure, carpet is warm and cozy, but over time dirt will build up on it. Then, the edges wear out, so much they get slippery, turning into a hazardous condition. Maintenance becomes labor intensive and costly.

So swap that old carpet covered steps out, for nice shiny wood staircase. Visit our staircase gallery to take a quick look, then come back.

Hardwood staircase treads are available in unfinished and pre-finished wood. So you have a choice of which type you would like to use. Keep it simple and have pre-finished manufactured look, or put a little time in and make it look unique.

Of course there are pros and cons to both of them.

Pref-finished Stair Treads

Prefinish wood staircase treads, requires no sanding or finishing. It requires less time to complete. All you have to do is install it, then fill the nails holes and your done. You don't have to spend the night, on the couch or in the basement.

That's the Pros of it, as for the Cons.

When a 15 gauge pneumatic nail penetrates the hardwood tread's surface. Material bulges up, sometimes causes a splinter.

You'll have to remove this or use a tapping block and hammer to set-it back down or sand it down.

You have to be careful in handling it, during installation, to prevent scratches or any damages, otherwise you'll adding more work by sanding it.

Some prefinished wood staircase treads do not come with a return. A Return is a finished end cap, piece that has a rounded edge, which gives it a finished look.

If you have balusters that are installed on top of the stair tread. You'll need a return here.

If, your prefinished hardwood stair treads cannot be purchased with a return, then you have to make one. Which requires sanding and finishing. No one like's unnecessary work, were trying to make things easy for ourselves.

Prefinished hardwood staircase treads are not available in every species.

You're only limited to what's available on the market only. Check with your local hardwood flooring supplier to find out, which species are available in pre-finished treads.

Unfinished Hardwood Staircase Treads

Unfinished hardwood staircase treads requires sanding and finishing.

The Cons, we get the dust storm and have to deal with fumes.

It's more time consuming to complete, because of coating. Well, it's not a perfect world.

The pros for unfinished wood staircase are, we get to mark up the material and not worry about it. Because we can sand any damages out before applying our finish coats.

We can fabricate any parts needed. There's no wasting time, trying to find items that are not available.

You can apply stain, to give it a more exotic look.
Make your stairacse stand out from the rest of the neighborhood.

Apply a top quality finish, to get the protection we need. You'll be able to manage the quality of your own finish and not be at the manufacturer's mercy. There are bad quality prefinished hardwood out there.

You can always prefinish, unfinished wood staircase treads, before you start the staircase installation. You can save time and it's less costly than prefinished stair treads.

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Choose your type of staircase, and let's get started on the installation.

Read the first article for a general idea on how to install your hardwood staircase treads.

In the first article, our focus will be replacing a wall to wall, plywood stair treads for oak hardwood staircase treads.

Why oak?

They're always available. They're commonly found in just about any homes. You can purchase them, at a home center near you.

You can always purchase your stair parts from our advertiser's available on this page. If, your local supplier cannot find a specfic stair part, that you need.

If, you'll be installing your own staircase. You can use the money that you'll be saving on labor and upgrade to some exotic wood, if you like.

Keep in mind that, specialty treads are special order. Any mistakes can cost you. So take your time, and you'll be able to complete this installation in no time.

Staircase Installation

Stair Winders

Staircase Installation Images

Starting Steps

Open End with one Return

Open End with a Double return.

G and S woodfloors Lynn,Ma.