Stairs

Carpet-to-hardwood stair conversion

Builder-grade carpeted flight stripped to the rough stringer and rebuilt in solid hardwood treads and matched risers.

When this is the job

A house built after about 1985 with carpet on the stairs and hardwood everywhere else. The carpet is worn in the centre of each tread, the flight is the first thing anyone sees from the front door, and the stairs are the only surface in the house that still looks like a builder chose it.

Also called: carpet to hardwood stairs · stair retread · removing carpet from stairs · hardwood stairs over existing stairs

Published band

From $380–$850 per step, installed

HST extra. A range, not a quote — a firm number follows a moisture reading on site.

Worked example

$6,449 – $9,148

13-step flight, white oak, Vaughan · 3–5 days

Typical specification

Solid hardwood treads, 1 inch nominal, species matched to the adjacent floor
Matched risers, or painted risers where the design calls for contrast
Nosing profile matched to the existing floor edge
Site-finished to the same sheen as the floor, or prefinished where the schedule is tight

Sequence of work

1Lift carpet, pad, and every staple. The staples are the hours nobody quotes for.
2Assess the rough stringer — builder flights are frequently out of level by more than the tread thickness.
3Shim and true each rise so the finished flight meets Ontario Building Code rise tolerance.
4Cut and fit treads and risers, mitred returns on the open side.
5Sand, stain to the approved floor sample, finish.
6Reinstall or rebuild the railing to code height with a graspable profile.

What goes wrong

The part of a hardwood job that costs money is rarely the part in the quote. These are the failures that produce a second invoice.

Retreads laid straight onto an untrued builder stringer

Rise varies from step to step. The Ontario Building Code tolerance between the tallest and shortest rise in a flight is tight, and a flight outside it is both a trip hazard and an inspection problem on any permitted work.

Avoided by: Measuring every rise before cutting anything, then shimming the stringer.

A nosing that projects further than the floor's edge profile

The classic retread mistake. It reads as wrong from the hallway even to someone who cannot say why, and an over-projecting nosing is its own code failure.

Avoided by: Matching the nosing profile to the existing floor before the first tread is cut.

Stain approved under a work light rather than in the actual stairwell

The treads read a different colour from the floor they meet. Stairwells are the worst-lit space in most houses and colour shifts hard under warm artificial light.

Avoided by: Signing off the sample in the stairwell itself, in daylight and at night.

Is this your job?

City, service and size gives you a 2026 GTA band in about twenty seconds. We lock a number only after a moisture reading.

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