Replacing steps on staircase?

[pieman]

During work at out house I have found that after removing the carpet from the stairs that some of the steps (treads) to the stairs are quite badly damaged by old woodworm attack. I do not have access under the stairs as it has been at some point covered and plastered. Is the replacement of the treads possible and how involved a job is this, is it very complicated and potentially expensive.

 

[chuckey]

You do not say what size/age/style of stair case it is. Also is it going to be re-carpeted?
If you can't do the carpentery your self, I would allow 2 Hrs/tread @ £25/Hr for a simple not-on-view tread.
The biggest problem is that the back of a tread is nailed upwards into the riser. Cutting out the tread is easy, to nail it back upwards into the riser, when the whole thing is concealed is impossible. The best way I can see is to prefabricate a piece of wood , shorter then the step width and of "L" section, screw the upright part behind the riser leaving a gap between the bottom of the riser and horizontal bit, into which the tread will fit. Use 2" wide blocks at each side, coat all in glue and screw together.
Frank

 

[Penners]

It's possible that the treads and risers are housed into the strings.

Cutting out an old tread of this type isn't difficult - just hack through the middle and pull the two halves out of their housings. But fitting the new one can't be achieved the same way without access to the back of the strings.

You may find that your only alternative is to screw/glue some horizontal battens on to the strings and on to the back of the top of the riser below, then screw/glue the new tread on to these. Use Chuckey's suggestion for securing the back of the new tread to the riser above.

When you do this, choose your screw positions and then drill a shallow 10mm diameter blind hole - no more than about 5mm deep - at each screwhole position. Then drill your ordinary screw pilot hole through the middle of this 10mm "crater". Screw and glue the tread into position.

Now cut some 5-6mm long pieces of 10mm dowel and glue them into the "craters" on top of the screw heads. When the glue is dry, sand the dowels down flush with the tread. The screw holes will then be almost invisible.

If you want to go a step closer to invisibility, instead of using dowels, cut yourself some 10mm dia plugs from the same wood as the new tread, using a proper 10mm plug cutter. Align the grain and glue into place, then sand off. That really will make the screwholes 99% invisible.

 

[shelli]

Honestly, Penners you're amazing ! - how do you know all this stuff ?

 

[Penners]

School of Hard Knocks, mostly!

But if you want really expert stuff, check out posts by the real professionals and experts that we're lucky enough to have on this forum.