scarabic t1_jcys7w7 wrote on March 20, 2023 at 4:23 PM

Reply to comment by UKthailandExpat in Replacing stair tread by unhappyoptimist_

In fact a 100 year old house likely has some choice lumber in its stair treads. A century ago we were still tearing through old growth forests and the lumber in old houses is tighter grained than anything you even CAN buy today. There’s a reason why recovered lumber is so prized, and it’s not because it looks all “old timey.”

If OP does replace all the treads, I hope the old ones go to a woodworker somewhere. Shit I’d be happy to have them.

unhappyoptimist_ OP t1_jd04i0v wrote on March 20, 2023 at 9:33 PM

I would definitely prefer to keep the other treads and they seem to be in good shape so that's the plan 🙂

ThisTooWillEnd t1_jd0btsk wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:23 PM

If you wanted to, you could keep the broken tread as well. Carefully remove the whole tread, clamp the pieces together, drill some 1/4" holes in perpendicular to break. Unclamp, add glue, clamp, tap in some dowels and allow to dry. Just cut/sand down the dowels and reinstall. It will never look perfect, but it will probably look better than any other attempt to replace that tread.

Good luck!

UKthailandExpat t1_jd1d4d3 wrote on March 21, 2023 at 2:54 AM

did not suggest a repair as that is a little more difficult to do well, however In fact a repair to the broken tread is almost certainly quite easy. There is no need or significant benefit to adding dowels and they add a significant degree of complexity, if the tread has broken as cleanly as it looks a simple glue joint is likely to hold for another 100 years or more, though you will have to make sure the tread makes full contact with the stringers and upright.

ThisTooWillEnd t1_jd3hjq0 wrote on March 21, 2023 at 3:57 PM

Good call. I like to overengineer things. Plus then you can point to the dowels and say "look, that's where I fixed it" and people will be impressed.

UKthailandExpat t1_jd6ewgb wrote on March 22, 2023 at 4:00 AM

That is certainly one way of doing things, though in my opinion the people who get impressed are those who don’t understand what is involved so I probably don’t want to impress them.

When I do a repair my aim is usually to completely hide that anything has been done. So in this case a simple glue joint is likely sufficient, however if I wanted belt and braces I would add a floating tenon or 2 (still invisible), but of course after the joint has set you can easily drill a few holes for dowels, that they are redundant for the joint strength though of course doesn’t matter as you can use wood for the dowels that doesn’t completely match the stair tread for added emphasis ;) .

As to over engineering it is certainly better than having items fail, so I usually ere on the side of “too much is only just enough”