We recently had carpet removed and hardwood put on our stairs. A portion of the old steps shows on the riser (?) under the new step. The riser is painted white, the old step is natural wood. It looks awful and the salesperson and installer say they're not in the business of fixing that. We have to do it. I just paid good money for stairs now I have to spend a weekend finishing them??! Is that normal business practice?

Shame on me for not asking the right questions when hiring these peple.

It all depends on what you paid for. Waht does your contract say? Not to clear of the situation though, did they just lay a tread on the exiting treads? Was there an exiting nosing when the carpet was pulled? Did they cut that nosing? What did they put on top, a solid 1 1/8" tread or 3/4" nosing with flooring?
If you paid to install treads, they are not responsible for risers.
Is it paintable? Many treads have 1/2 x 3/4" scotia molding under them. Could be an easy coverup.

The contract was to install treads and risers. They did both. The problem is the skirting(?). You can see where they cut the top of the old tread away. After researching it sounds like the proper way to do this to to remove the carpet, remove part of the old tread then prep the skirting by painting then put on the new tread, and risers. It seems to me that this is included in the Labor charge listed on my invoice.

This is one of those "grey" areas that I, as a contractor, try to go over with my customers before I contract with them. Sounds like a small area where the old rough nosing used to be is now exposed and not painted. Personally, in general, I don't think it is the responsibility of the flooring contractor to touch up paint existing trim that he did not install UNLESS he is responsible for damaging it. In this case, this should have been brought to the owners attention and discussed. I can understand the contractor not wanting to do this because he probably could not get a perfect paint color match and then he would have to repaint the entire skirt/stringer on both sides! What about jobs where there was carpet and it has been removed. But now the bottoms of the door jambs and casings are exposed and the paint doesn't reach the bottom. Is the flooring installer responsible for repainting the jambs and casings because he removed the existing flooring to install the new flooring? I don't think so! This scenario is similar. For the homeowner; just carefully mask off the new nosing and repaint the area in question. If your contractor has done a good job for you in every respect but this one, I say cut him some slack. If he didn't say he would repaint the stringers/skirts, then don't expect him to do it. It will only take you a couple of hours max.

Thanks for your input. I appreciate seeing it from the other side. My frustration is w/ the store owner/ salesperson. When he came to our home to discuss the installation, he never mentioned there would be additional work required on my part. Honestly, I don't think I should have had to ask that question. I feel that I was purposely mis-lead by someone who works in this industry and knew that this additional work would be required.

He's a salesman for gods sake! It is his job to mis-lead you, to buy, buy , buy!!!

I have yet to hear a flooring salesman, not tell the client what they wanted to hear. Not what was really going to happen.