*
I was reading an article at JLC in which a builder was hearlding the benefits of shop made stairs over site built stairs. I’m sure these companies are offering some top notch products at competetive prices but I’m not convinced that they can hands down blow away a professional stair installer in quality and price. He was saying he saved installation time compared to his carpenters, fine but does his guys do stairs every day or 3 a year?
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Listeners write in about fireplaces affecting family harmony and bionic suits, before asking questions about brick steps, ground-source heat pumps, and building a dome greenhouse in Maritime Canada.
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
- Home Group
- Antique Trader
- Arts & Crafts Homes
- Bank Note Reporter
- Cabin Life
- Cuisine at Home
- Fine Gardening
- Fine Woodworking
- Green Building Advisor
- Garden Gate
- Horticulture
- Keep Craft Alive
- Log Home Living
- Military Trader/Vehicles
- Numismatic News
- Numismaster
- Old Cars Weekly
- Old House Journal
- Period Homes
- Popular Woodworking
- Script
- ShopNotes
- Sports Collectors Digest
- Threads
- Timber Home Living
- Traditional Building
- Woodsmith
- World Coin News
- Writer's Digest
Replies
*
This is just my observation, Allen, but all the full time stair builders I've run across build them in the shop, disassemble, and install on site. Definitely the companies I know of that do circular and curved stairs usually do it that way, and often ship them to towns too small to have a full time stairbuilder. If you're building straight stairs from components, that may be different.
*Allen - What exactly do you mean by "shop made stairs" ? Are they made with conventional stringers and such, or something else ?
*I haven't seen any "shop" made stairs in this part of the country. You can buy circular stair kits, but the main staircase's in the house's we work on are framed by the framer and finished by the finish guy. Even the curved stairs. We sometimes have to send out to a local mill for custom parts, but we put it all together. There are a few stair companies around, but they mostly work the high volume market.Ed. Williams
*Ron and GACC, Apparently thinks are done very differently in other parts of the country. What I call shop made is when the stringers, treads and risers are assembled in a shop and brought to a site and put in whole. In my area we build circle stairs and straight stairs on site. The parts are made in shops but we build them on site. I do remember talking to a stairman on this board that built in a shop and installed them. The guy that measures up the job would have to locate walls out of square and floors out of level....sounds scary to me!
*Around here, I only know of Pulte that has shop built circular stairs delivered. They come from a Canadien source (we're just across the river). We have to set the beasts. The rails are done on the finish. They've got laminated oak stringers and oak end-capped treads. It is up to us to get them to fit. Sometimes it takes an extra amount of boogerin'. Sometimes they just set right into place.Pulte also sends out pre-built straight stairs too. It's probably a lot faster to build them in the shop. It's the same form day after day after day after...blue
*Allen,He's a remodeler. His guys are capable of building stairs, but they do framing through finish too. The stair builders he was refering to did nothing but stairs. They had all the router jigs set up and materials at hand so they could bang out a superior product for a resonable price.In the interest of giving his clients the best possible product as quickly as possible, he discovered yet another area worth subbing out. Dan
*Dan, Thats making sense now, I couldn't blame him!
*I've been installing shop built for the past year or so. The guy who comes out to measure mine usually makes a few minor mistakes and I started checking his takeoffs before placing the order. The most common mistake is that he doesn't allow for the thickness of the landing tread that lays on top of the sub floor. Maybe next time. But they have saved me time and money and probably give me a better stair overall. One other thing to caution you all who may be thinking of trying these stairs. If you are going to have stained treads, risers, or skirts, you may not get the "carefully selected" stock that goes with custom stairs. I may do a little more discriminating when picking out and renting the parts. They just pull them off the shelf and use them as they come. So make sure you know what you are getting and the stair builder knows what you expect.
*Kcoyner, What do you do when your putting a stairs in between walls and the width or sqaureness varys? Our wall stringers are tight against the wall, I can't imagine putting a flight of pre-built stairs in somebodies raunchy framing and getting a tight fit, do you have some sort of cap moulding on top of the stringers to take up the variables?
*Allen,For my framing jobs, I make the stair carrage 1 1/4" less than the framing. This allows the drywall intallation to be almost painless. The remaining 1/4" is split between the sides and I use 1 1/2" base cap to finish the stair off. I continue the 5/4 stock with a continuous base cap to the nearest opening at the top and the bottom. This makes a nice job. If you were installing the steps after drywall, then I would leave a little more say 1/8" on each side. This doesn't finish as well but gives you a little more room to fit the stairs in w/o damage to the sheetrock. I like to put them in before drywall. I usually tape on some 1/4" plywood to protect the steps. This way if there is a framing problem, it can be corrected easily. If this isn't possible and the framing is that bad, maybe you will have to stick to site built.
*Allen...I have only installed prebuilt stairs...about seven sets to date...Three of these I built....The openings were framed just larger than the stairs and the walls were drawn tight to the stringers of the stairs with screws under the treads thru the stringers to the wall studs...No gap left and all comes out nice and is quite easy to do....near the stream with another set to build in a couple of months,ajBy the way....My lumber yards build straight stairs for not much more than a $200 above what materials cost me. (closed stringer)
*AJ: how long have these installations been in use? And, how were the treads & risers attached to the stringers? I ask because at first thought I would worry about those studs helping to pull the treads and stringers apart.
*No problems yet and I never would expect any...the stairs are glued and screwed together and the stringers are routed....I can't see any other way of doing it though I see stairs site built a piece at a time.Near the stream needing a web cam,aj
*we stopped building our interior stairs about 5 years ago.. we use the same company as the one in the article that allen was mentioning...we do all the prep.. they measure or build to our spec.. we install...we can't build them better, and we can't beat the price..so we spend our talents on other things ... there's always other things....