Carpentry and Woodworking - Open Staircase - fitting risers - advice please

Hi everyone,

hope you can give me a little advice/suggestions.

We have just moved to a new house and the staircase is 'open'. The treads are carpeted right round.
I am concerned that our dog is going to harm himself by losing his footing through the gaps. We have already had a couple of close calls.

I wish to close the gaps by putting in risers and then repining each piece of carpet to make a closed carpeted staircase.

As the risers are not part of the support structure and not load bearing i wondered what type of wood to use and how to fix.

I thought about 18mm MDF.

And the two fixing methods i have in mind are either

a - wooden block brackets to fix to the upper tread and long (ish) woodscrews through the riser and lower tread.
b - screw down through the upper tread (countersunk). And same as a for the riser to lower tread.

probably with first applying some pva to the joining surfaces.

That's my thoughts so feel free to comment on how you think i should tackle this. I will be doing it on my own and kinna need to do it quickly.

thanks in advance,

cheers,

dave

what type of material is the stair case made of?

Not sure to be honest. I'll take the carpet off of one of the treads tomorrow and have a look.

I wouldn't use MDF. As long as you are carpeting it all in, i would use 1x pine. If you use screws and your stair treads are oak.. you better predrill.

I agree with Hellrazor, MDF would not be a good choice, and pre-drilling is a must. Also, you may want to consider back-blocking the risers for safety.

Thanks guys... :thumbup:

I'll try and post a pic of a tread minus carpet later. I take it that back-blocking is adding those little triangular or square blocks of wood, (glued then screwed) at the top of the riser to the tread ?
Does anyone know of a tutorial on staicase building or whatever that may help me?

Yes, back-blocking is exactly as you described. It just makes the stairs safer by helping to prevent accidental "kick-thru".

I can't remember the exact title of the book, but Home Depot has one that is all about stairs.

Hope this helps.