The interior stairs cladding – flooring tiles or wood?

Service Description

The interior stairs cladding – flooring tiles or wood?

The interior design is an activity that can be done at any time of the year, because there is always something to be modified or improved in a house. Some of these operations are simpler and require less time and resources, while others require a longer time and a consistent financial effort to be achieved.

Inspired by the message of a reader, we chose to discuss today about the interior stair design – an operation of a medium complexity.

One customer from London told us that in the house that she just moved is an interior stair cladded with hardwood flooring. One month after she moved, she found out that the installing had been done over an equalizing screed that had not dried enough. That is why she had to remove the hardwood flooring and consider other cladding variants. Here is where the dilemma appeared: wood or flooring tiles?

In such situations, the recommendation of most specialists is to use also wood for staircase claddings, both for aesthetical and practical reasons. If an owner chooses the flooring tile, it must be primarily a non-slip one to avoid accidents. In addition, it is a little more difficult to find some matching skirting boards. Therefore, the wood or even laminate wood flooring cladding is often preferred to the flooring tile one.

The tip was useful to our reader, who came back with a new request, to find out the special conditions in which the hardwood flooring should be glued. In the given situation, before installation, a treatment for moisture inhibition in the substrate must be used. Subsequently, it is possible to stick with special double components adhesives for hardwood flooring and wood.

The wooden steps cladding of the internal staircase made of concrete

If you have a house with a ground floor and one level, and the connection between them is made by a concrete staircase, then you have to decide with what kind of material you want to clad the steps. As the staircase gives you a completely different look of the house, you will have to refine the stair by cladding the steps with wood or marble.

The first thing you have to do is make sure that the steps and risers are equal or that there is a small margin between the steps but not more than 5 millimeters.

If the cladding is made with wood, the humidity of the concrete steps is very important. This must not be more than 2% in order not to have problems with the deformation of the wood. If you install wooden stairs over the concrete stairs with moisture greater than 2%, the wooden stairs will deform and soon they will be grouped together.

If the unevenness of the concrete steps is very high, then the only solution to clad them with wood is to level the stairs with a concrete screed to be close to the standard floor.

The concrete steps cladding with wooden steps is done by gluing with polyurethane foam or with an installing adhesive. Later, to be sure they will not deform, you can fix the wooden steps with self-tapping screws and dowels.