Carpeting stairs question

I have a condo with two floors but the second floor is over another unit. The sound transmission when I walk up the stairs I guess is pretty substantial. As I nice gesture I am considering carpeting them but they are of a nice wood and look nice and I'm sure probably for selling the place, maybe more desirable then carpeted stairs. So my question is can I carpet the stairs with something easily removable without doing a lot of damage to the stairs themselves such as nail holes, etc?

You could install a nice carpet runner.

Not really.

I just carpeted 2 stairs in my house. Wood looks nice, but is slippery if you are running around in socks and increases risk of injury. Falling on a carpeted stair is softer than an all wood one. Also, there's a lot of impact on your body from going down the stairs (hence the noise), and carpet will ease that.

There are different ways of doing stairs, and your installer will ask you. You can have one continuous piece or a piece for each step. That helps if one step gets dirty it is easier to replace.

This might be your only way to achieve what you want to do without marking up the stairs.
http://www.improvementscatalog.com/...at=0107&cm_ite=spiderlinker&code=macs=MP7SPDR

Wow, good suggestions. Greenlight, what do you think it would cost to have carpet installed? I have 13 steep steps. If a single piece was cheaper then separate, that is the way I would go.

Maybe it wouldn't decrease the value as opposed to straight wood?

This sounds interesting as well but I wonder if it would be thick enough to provide any sound dampening?

DUQ said:

You could install a nice carpet runner.

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See if you can get the downstairs owners, or tenants (a few hundred bucks isn't much to pay for some peace and quiet; I'm sure they don't want to move), to pay for 1/2, and use good padding if you're really going to go thru with the project. You have to pay to get the guys out there, so you don't really get a discount just because the area is less. It might be a more complex job.

I don't really talk to the tenant that much. She is an older reclusive woman who won't say a peep to me on the few chances I run into her in the hall, yet won't hesitate to wrap the back of the stairs with a broom or some other blunt object. I was wondering if she complained to her landlord how much it would cost and would it be effective to tack on a layer of soundboard to the back of the stairs.

I wonder though if I did have someone come in and carpet it for me, could I get away with it being done for less then a thousand? Not sure how expensive the carpet itself is but I would think it's something they could do in a day. Just a straight set of stairs between the two floors.

Carpeting stairs isn't hard, just make templates of the steps and footboards, transfer to carpet, cut and glue.
You should give it a try, it is a lot less hard than it looks.

I would suggest stair runners which still show off some of the wood. http://www.stair-rods-online.com/stair_carpet_runners_shopping/plain_wool_stair_runner.php

B@rt said:

Carpeting stairs isn't hard, just make templates of the steps and footboards, transfer to carpet, cut and glue.
You should give it a try, it is a lot less hard than it looks.

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I would have recommended a pneumatic staple gun. You need a stretcher, too, to get everything tight.

If you glue the stretcher isn't needed, and it prevents wear because it doesn't slide. With staples there will always be movement.

Lots of good options in the earlier posts.

I like the idea of a really attractive runner that shows the wood at each side. (I'm a real estate guy and can assure you that there is no way to guess what a buyer might find attractive -- I recently flipped a townhouse. I'd installed quality ceramic tile in the foyer, baths and kitchen. That's the first thing the buyers removed!)

Maybe pretty obvious, but just in case we might have overlooked something -- is the sound transmission you're worried about come from the actual noise of going up and down the stairs ("foot fall"), or is it from the creaking of the stairs, or both?

A good way to tell how bad creaking can be is to walk up or down the staircase but being careful to only place your feet on the outside edges. That's where there is usually the most mechanical fastening and it should usually be much quieter. If it's not quieter on the edges, then you should probably look at the staircase structure anyway since that's not a good sign (also, a tread should never, ever roll from front to back or vice versa at all -- very dangerous).

Curing bad creaking problems sometimes ends up with almost rebuilding the risers. However, once that's done correctly there's very little noise. Foot fall with little or no creaking should be lessened by carpet and padding -- much cheaper even for high quality.

B@rt said:

If you glue the stretcher isn't needed, and it prevents wear because it doesn't slide. With staples there will always be movement.

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Makes removal tough.

Those are nice suggestions. So with either a stair tread or carpet runner, I don't need anything to secure them down?

The problem is thumping. They are pine (I think stairs) and not much creaking but thumps very easily. I wish I could see what it looks like in the unit below me. I assume they at least tack some sheet rock or something to the back of the stairs?

geepondy said:

So with either a stair tread or carpet runner, I don't need anything to secure them down?

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On the contrary, whatever you put down *must* be fastened securely. If the wood is nice you can let it show to either side of the carpet.

What about using some velcro fastened to the steps, the other side fastened to the carpet? That way you can remove easily, easy to install as a DIY and it wont slip around.

You would still have to either staple or glue the bottom velcro bits but apart from that, it'd be a cinch!!

Quality double sided tape. Not the Dollar Store kind. You can get it at carpet supply place.

It might be worthwhile to have carpet professionally installed, since stairs are kind of tricky to carpet and a poor installation could be dangerous.

If foot fall is the problem ("thumping") and carpet runners seem to be too much of a pain or you cannot find a style to your liking it might be possible to use sound deadening or insulating foam if you can easily get underneath the stairs -- not always an option or necessarily easily done I know but the change in density chould limit the noise quite a bit and would be a very quick and inexpensive fix.

I like carpeted stair runners, but as has been said, they have to be installed carefully and unless you get good carpeting and padding it not only won't be as quiet as needed but will not wear as well either. It certainly still could be an easy project but anything on stairs requires careful installation.