I am looking for a way to save money on installing red oak treads with a runner, I have an idea and want some opinions and more ideas. My idead is to trim each side of the stair with a 6" solid red oak tread and splice in a pine tread beneath the runner, but then the question is how would it be stable on the riser, I could biscut the 3 tread pieces together. Does anyone have any better ideas? Just looking to save a couple of bucks to achieve a nice appearance.

This has been done for many years, except what is usually used are called false end caps. Then down the middle, where a runner should be, regular wall to wall carpeting is installed. To make thick solid oak tread material work, you will need to add plywood to the middle to take up some of the thickness. Probably 1/2" ply would be about right. These are what false treads look like:



Read about them here: http://www.stairsupplies.com/eng/produc ... alse_Tread

Since I have a background in carpet. I can tell you if your sides are higher than your runner middle (min 3/8"). Your carpet installer will appreciate you and you will appreciate his bill much more. The raised wood will give him something to tuck the carpet to.

Absolutely. That's why I recommended 1/2" plywood between the two solid treads, which are usually 1&1/16" thick. Adding 1/2" would leave the oak treads 9/16 of an inch proud of the plywood where the carpet will be installed. That may be a little too much so one could use 5/8" plywood in the middle to adjust for the installation of the carpet.