Simple Home Repairs: Wood Steps
Patricia Klobe
Department of Environmental Design
Your problem
- Treads or risers are loose, sagging, broken, warped, or worn out
What you need
- Replacement stock should be pressure-treated wood
- Claw hammer and 8d finishing nails
- Crosscut saw
- Framing square
- Chisel
- Pry bar
- Nails -- 6d to 10d depending on the thickness of stock to be used.
Procedure
If your steps consist of the "open-riser" or "plank" type, make repairs using the following procedures:
- Strike the underside of the damaged tread with moderate blows of the hammer. If nails pop up, pull them out with the claw of the hammer. If not, continue to remove the tread by striking the underside. Remove or sink any nails that protrude from the stringer.
- Measure the tread to be replaced. Mark this on the replacement board. With the square aligned at the edge, mark the cut line. Make the cut with the crosscut saw.
- Now put the new tread in place and nail it using 8d nails. Use at least three nails at each end of the tread, one near each edge of the tread and one near the center.
- If the steps have closed risers, the following variation in the procedures should be followed.
- The steps may have a piece of trim running along the upper portion of the riser and under the nosing (tread extension) of the tread. If so, using the chisel or pry bar, remove it.
- Using the hammer, carefully strike the underside of the tread at the nosing to free the tread from the riser below. Use the chisel or pry bar at this point to pry up the tread. The tread will also be secured at the sides to the stringers.
- After the front and sides of the tread are free, pull the tread forward carefully and evenly, to free the rear of the tread from the riser above.
- Remove the riser if it also has to be replaced. Begin by partially prying the riser loose from the upper tread. Once the nails are exposed, saw them off flush with a hacksaw blade. Continue by prying the riser away from stringers. Sink or pull any nails that protrude.
- Measure and cut the replacement tread and riser, using the procedures in steps 2 and 3. Now proceed to place the new tread and riser.
- Place the riser first by putting it in its location under the nosing of the upper tread and against the cutout of the stringers. Now nail the riser into place by face-nailing it to the stringers. Then nail the upper tread down on the riser. Space the nails the same as the old nail spacing, or approximately 6 inches apart.
- Now place the new tread in position. Face-nail the tread to the riser below and to the stringers. If trim was removed, replace it at this point with 4d or 5d finishing nails.
Your benefits
- Steps are safer.
- Steps look better.
- No more bouncy or sagging steps.
This guide was reprinted from the United States Department of Agriculture publication, Program Aid number 1193, Extension Service.
GH5931, reviewed October 1993
