wooden floor height against stair riser Help, advice, information, answers and tips on all types of flooring from laminate and carpet to timber and vinyl

[Dan Stewart]

Hi all,

I have decided to lay a solid wood floor (25mm pine boards) over a concrete sub floor using 25mm battens. This obviously results in the ground floor being raised by 50mm. Does anyone know how I get around having a very shallow step at the bottom of the staircase? I really want to avoid buying a new staircase.

The rise of the finished bottom step would be approx 85mm and all the rest of the risers would be 150mm. I am in Scotland and building regs state that all the risers have to be uniform, as far as I can make out. I have contemplated fastening plywood to the stairs at decreasing heights as you move up the staircase to even out the height difference, but the stairs would then not be in line with the stringer and they would not all be uniform in size? We would be carpeting the staircase eventually.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[welsh brickie]

the only thing I can think of it to raise the entire stairs up, this will result in boarding the landing at the top of the stairs, also reduce the thickness of the battens by using strips of ply instead.

[Dan Stewart]

Thanks for your help Welsh Brickie,

I have already got the battens so don't really want to change this side of things. Do you think I can get away with gradually reducing the height of each riser by say 5mm on each step using ply? This would then ensure that the finished floor level at the top would be somewhere like? Would you notice a difference of 5mm between each step? Would this be legal?

Cheers

Dan

[welsh brickie]

that's up to the building inspector, In all honesty I would ask his opinion he might come up with something different, I have always found them really helpful he would notice what you have done anyway