Stair repair or replace?
I know there have been a few posts regarding looking for service providers for stair repair, however my question is looking for personal experiences on keep vs. replacing. We have all original stairs which are pulling out of the original baseboard stringer for about 4-5 of the steps. Our GC (other renovation is being done at the same time) says the stairway has spread enough that unless we completely dismantle (v. expensive) the best course is to put in all new treads and risers and keep the spindle side and newel post intact. For some reason I think they could be repaired from underneath with shims and screws. Am I completely off base? What have you done to yours? I’m a little attached to the idea of the original steps themselves, but could be misguided on that!
sherry.parnes
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
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stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
to the consternation of people who do not like my repeated posts, i am going to add this on top of what bkallday said and my post above:
i just looked at the damage on my own stair tread which i stopped simply by putting a coat of urethane on. now i got lucky. this is what happens to allow pine and some other woods break off in “pencil like strips”. what we have done is worn the soft fibers and the glues (and i do not mean glue that people use, i mean the “lignan” that acts as glue in trees) that bond the stronger elements of the wood together. For us, knowing this might be otherwise useless because as bkallday found, it was better to purchase new treads. But this is what could have been done and i do not know if it could have been done even twenty or thirty years ago and i do not do this when working on exterior woods (on exterior wood, we cut and replace the wood) but on stair treads it should work fine: we can take a thinned epoxy. i use marine epoxies and thin my own, but a company called abatron now makes these. we can then brush the epoxy into the deteriorating wood and i would keep brushing it on so long as the wood soaked it up. this will replace the lignan and restabilize the wood and, it can be done after staining so long as you use water base stain (oil would seal the grain and lock the epoxy out) as the epoxies are clear. and further, the epoxies can be tinted (they are naturally amber anyway).
we do not use this process on exterior woods as these epoxies are very new (they were not in use when i watched boat builders work in the ’70’s; back then we used something called “resourcenol” and am not sure that we can pour resourcenol into the grain of wood. i don’t think it would have absorbed that way and it dried blood red, so staining or tinting resourcenol is an issue) and we do not know how well the epoxies will respond to the wood’s desire to absorb and release moisture.
what i have just shared with you all can probably save a lot of people headaches with decaying stair treads. this is easy stuff. you just have to know about it.
sorry if i am beating the post to death.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
let me add something about the old pine treads now that bkallday said something about them flaking off in pencil strips and this goes with all of us: we have to keep a finish coat on the treads. as soon as i see the finish wearing on my treads, i put a coat on. so long as there is a coat on there, the wood will not wear off but as soon as the finish is gone and the wood is exposed, it wears fast. and some shoes wear it faster; i have a pair of work boots that were really working on a few of my treads until i got a couple coats on there and the damage was growing by the week. even the old pine can not withstand this kind of abuse.
BKALLDAY | 5 years and 11 months ago
My old treads were pine. It looked like clear cut too. No knots except it would flake off in pencil thin strips. This was after we had them removed and taken to our wood guy to be replaced for possible reinstallation. Someone mentioned earlier that the wood back then was better and in a sense that is true but in our case it could not be salvaged so we went with Mahogany. In the end get the best advice and think long term.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
and even if something is crappy wood, it does not mean that the right folks cannot make it look like good wood. I have a walnut side board here in our living room and i wanted our balustrade to match it. the balustrade is poplar and somewhere along the way someone painted it (it was probably too dark, that dark 1920’s jacobean). i had my crew strip it and stain it (a multi step staining process using dye stain first and ending with oil) and it now looks like the walnut sideboard; you cannot tell the difference and the way to deal with poplar is multi step staining. this little stair project is three years in the making and still not done; it has one coat of oil (tung, linseed would go too dark) and will need one more and then a coat of wax. before i began this project, i too had thought of ripping this out and tossing in the trash and it is, really, crappy wood.
to turn crappy wood into something good, you have to find people who use multi step processes. and no minwax stains.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
and brent and others, let’s keep this in mind especially if the elements of the staircase are painted; sometimes they used better woods on the lower floors and the woods got progressive lower grade until you got to the top floor where the servants lived. if the wood is painted, it would be impossible to tell. also, i only saw this happen in Manhattan, not in brooklyn, though in recent years i have paid less attention to staircases.
you know, if the OP were to post a picture of their newel post on here and some of the balusters, all of the people who commented on here can offer up their opinion as to how special the materials are, without knowing the wood species. we all know what a special newel post looks like.
fwiw, i used to work on these and make balustrades and change treads. I no longer do this and turn the work away.
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
I don’t disagree with any of that. Indeed my only point was that the homeowner should assess the quality of the materials before deciding whether to save. I know from personal experience with my own home that three flights of steps were created/ maintained equally over the 120 years the home has been standing. As such, while some are worth maintaining, replacement makes sense for others.
I think it overstates things to presume that everything old can (or even should) be maintained. There are instances in which the homeowner would be better served by sourcing new materials. Making that assessment shouldn’t be controversial.
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
I don’t disagree with any of that. Indeed my only point was that the homeowner should assess the quality of the materials before deciding whether to save. I know from personal experience with my own home that three flights of steps were created/ maintained equally over the 120 years the home has been standing. As such, while some are worth maintaining, replacement makes sense for others.
I think it overstates things to presume that everything old can (or even should) be maintained. There are instances in which the homeowner would be better served by sourcing new materials. Making that assessment shouldn’t be controversial.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
brent, most of the times the cheap woods in the brownstone period were better than what we find today, unless we go top shelf today (and even then we have issues). prior to the brownstone period, most of the stuff we see is pine (and just because its old does not mean it too was good) and it was all made to be painted – even in mansions on Long Island and fine old houses in lower manhattan (paint was a sign of wealth in the real old days). The old stair treads, if they are pine, are usually a really good pine made to take abuse (tight grain; the ones in my 1928 house are really nice, surprisingly). we can’t find that anymore. i cannot find it if i try and i have (the crap in home depot is something called “radiata”; we use modern stair tread for pine because it is the densest on the local market). Now they grow stuff so fast on tree farms that the graining is all spread out. The folks on here talking about spindles and rails and perhaps treads pretty much know what they are looking at, the OP may not. it won’t really take an expert (i’m an expert in fine w oods; but so is anyone on here who owns a brownstone in brooklyn) to figure out if the ballustrade is of finer wood; the neighbor can help them with that but i would bet it is; that is the hallmark of the period, finer woods around the entry and just inside the house. if the house falls outside of the brownstone or limestone period, what you are saying will can come into play.
i think if the OP knows they will remain in that house for a long time and they like the balustrade (no matter what it is, even if it is lesser wood; but they like the shape and style) and they like what they are seeing on treads and risers – the style of the ends and trim along the stringer, then they should begin the conversation with an expert and then dollars will come into play as well. in either case this is going to be pricey; they are not shopping at big orange.
just my thoughts.
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
Any substance (even the wood) in a home can be crap. All the more reason to have an expert take a look and opine on whether the old wood is “good quality.” Not sure how verifying this before deciding on next steps could be remotely controversial. I have a 120 year old house and know for a fact that all the wood isn’t “old growth.”
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
Any substance (even the wood) in a home can be crap. All the more reason to have an expert take a look and opine on whether the old wood is “good quality.” Not sure how verifying this before deciding on next steps could be remotely controversial. I have a 120 year old house and know for a fact that all the wood isn’t “old growth.”
cate | 5 years and 11 months ago
19th century wood is not crap it is old growth.
BKALLDAY | 5 years and 11 months ago
I would focus on keeping the newel post and spindles and putting in new treads and risers. Here is why. An old house settles and if you can afford to take everything out then you can reset the entire stairs so that it is all level from the wall out to the spindles. These adjustments can only be made with a full renovation of the stair case(s). Anything else is just patchwork and you may have to make repairs down the road anyway.
This will also save so much aches and pains to your knees and eliminate any squeaky steps. If you are installing new flooring the fit around the bulwark and the first riser would mesh better. Also if the wood is inferior you can hopefully afford a better quality wood which will last a lifetime ( we took out inferior pine on the treads and risers and put in clear mahogany that to this day is ah-mazing). I understand the dictates of your wallet may lead here but consider the stairs part of the “mechanicals” of the home and make the investment if you can. Good luck.
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
Agreed with slopefarm. Too many people assume that old equals good, when a house could just have old crap. If it is crap wood, what are you holding onto.
residentsofpresident
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
Agreed with slopefarm. Too many people assume that old equals good, when a house could just have old crap. If it is crap wood, what are you holding onto.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
look what slope said about GC’s wanting to rip it out and put in new. Gc’s are focused on money and keeping the job moving. if you want someone to rebuild your stairs, find someone who rebuilds stairs. not a GC. the guys who do this for a living will know right when they look at your staircase what it needs and what they will have to do. Guys that work on stairs only have ALL their eggs in one basket so they better know what they are doing.
cate | 5 years and 11 months ago
Try to keep everything you can. There is no comparison between new and an original staircase, even if the staircase is made of pine. Ours is and it is one of the most gorgeous things in the house. Pulling away on four or five steps sounds like nothing to me. Speak to an antique stair repair specialist, not a GC, about the best approach. Have them over to take a look and give a quote for the work. If you must, you can keep everything but replace a few treads. You could attempt to replace with like wood and refinish in a like manner. Or you could paint only the treads and keep everything else. Be aware GCs and floor refinishers don’t like the idea of refinishing stairs because it’s a huge amount of work. Our floor refinisher scraped our staircase by hand. It looks amazing.
daveinbedstuy | 5 years and 11 months ago
slopefarm, tread lightly on this subject. Rise up and take the high road.
slopefarm | 5 years and 11 months ago
Yeah, at least get one or two estimates from stair specialists. Sometimes GCs like to take the quick route, which is usually a rip out and replace approach where things are dicey. But restoration is only worth pursuing if the wood is good quality and visually interesting.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
try to rebuild anything you can. the guy above this reply, santos, appears to have done a few of these.