Hi guys,

I recently hired someone to install hardwood on my previously carpeted stairs. So far I have noticed two mistakes. The stairs were mortised and he did not cover or patch the holes where the original nosing was. Second now that the new tread is installed the nose of the tread sits a fraction of an inch higher than where the stinger ends and it obviously looks stupid. He only completed about a quarter of the job today and I plan on pointing these things out before he continues tomorrow but is there any way to deal with the fact that the nose on the new trad is slightly higher then the stinger? If so, what?

I'm not following you. Got a picture. Somone else here might understand. But anyway, here is a loink to Ken's other site page about stairs and has a paragraph about mortised stringers

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/hardwo ... -prep3.htm

Not sure how to post a picture but here is a video of one of the stairs.

Thanks
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB4FviX8GD4[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB4FviX8GD4

I usually install the tred nose at a 7/8" overhang, ( hard to tell the measurement from the picture, looks like an inch plus). Regardless, it obviously doesn't work with the stringer. Depending on the situation,and this looks like one, I have held back the nose overhang actually as close to within 1/8" before the start of the half round profile of the tred. This still can look good to me on a staircase. From the looks...I'm guessing he wouldn't have to pull the nose back too far to clear the stringer by an 1/8-1/4",and still squeez out a minimal overhang of the riser. With this design he will have to elimate that corner moulding where tred meets riser. I dont use the corner moulding, depending on the situation I'll either route out the bottom side of the tred and slip the riser up into the routed slot, or scribe fit the risers to the treds.

Filling the existing nosing holes are easily done, but alot easier before the treds and risers are installed.

I could be wrong but it appears that your contractor didn't rip out the old treads . It seems he put new treads and risers on top of / over the old ones . If that is correct, then he should have at least informed you of the process and what the appearance would be .To me , that doesn't look acceptable or normal.

It's nothing painters putty and touch-up paint won't fix.

I've seen steps like that which sit out farther than the stringer. As a matter of fact I've seen detailed instructions on how to do it that way

I guess everything's a matter of taste. Not in my house.

Maybe in an ultra modern home where you wanted a "floating" staircase you would do something like that but as a general rule I would say that is not the case. On top of all of those issues I now noticed that he top nailed the stairs so now I have 3 rows of 3-4 patched nail hole in each tread. Am I wrong on this stuff. It would help to know at this point because I have not paid him for any of the work up to this point and it would help to have some sort of consensus about how this should have been done.

To recap, my current issues are;

1. All treads are top nailed and it is clearly visible where the nail holes were patched
2. There is molding between the risers and treads to cover up the gap between the tread and riser
3. Almost every stair has some caulk between the tread and stringer

This was a 15 stair run with a small turn in the top 3 stairs and I am looking at $2000 for labor and materials.

Advice please.