Stairs & Railings
Custom Stair Installation in East Kensington, Philadelphia
Treads, risers, stringers and skirt board, built to a drawing instead of a catalog page. In East Kensington, Philadelphia the median home dates to 1943 and 48.9% of the housing predates 1940, which changes what we expect to find before the work starts.
- Neighborhood of
- Philadelphia, PA
- Population
- 6,659
- Housing units
- 3,341
- Median year built
- 1943
- Built before 1940
- 48.9%
- Built before 1978
- approximately 59.1%
- Owner occupied
- 42.0%
What is usually under the floor here
Housing this old normally holds narrow strip oak laid straight over joists, and often it has only one sanding left.
In a place where a large share of the housing predates 1940, the floor under the carpet is usually the original one. That means narrow strip oak, sometimes heart pine on upper floors, nailed straight to the joists with no plywood in between. It also means the floor has probably been sanded before, possibly more than once.
Only the wood above the tongue can be sanded, roughly a quarter inch on a traditional floor. A floor that has already given up two of those sandings is a different job from one that has given up none, and the difference is not visible from standing height. We measure at the edge of a board before quoting.
Worth knowing here
Parquet and herringbone turn up under carpet in this stock more often than people expect, and they sand differently: the grain runs in two directions at once, so a drum sander used the normal way tears them.
Whether the federal lead rule applies depends on the house
Approximately 59.1% of the homes here predate 1978, so it comes down to the specific address.
This is a place where the housing stock straddles the 1978 line the EPA rule draws. Roughly half the addresses are covered and roughly half are not, which means the answer is per house rather than per town.
Where it does apply, the rule governs how the sander is set up: containment and a HEPA vacuum collecting dust where it is generated. We check the age of the house before deciding how the work is staged.
How custom stair installation runs
Treads, risers, stringers and skirt board, built to a drawing instead of a catalog page.
The full method, the equipment and what we will and will not promise are on the service page: Custom Stair Installation.
Also in East Kensington
Hardwood Floor RefinishingSand the old finish off, repair what needs repairing, and put a new finish down
Dustless Floor SandingVacuum-extraction sanding
Solid Hardwood Floor InstallationSolid wood, nailed down over a wood subfloor
Engineered Hardwood InstallationReal wood over a stable core
Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) InstallationWaterproof, quiet, and it does not care about a wet basement
Stair RefinishingStairs take more wear per square foot than any floor in the house, and they are sanded almost entirely by hand
Hardwood Floor RepairBoard replacement, weaving in new wood, squeaks, gaps and cupping
Questions
Can you tell me what my floor needs over the phone?
We can tell you what is likely, and this page is most of that answer. What we cannot do is quote a floor we have not seen, because remaining thickness and what is under the covering both decide the job and neither is visible in a description.
Do you bring the material?
Yes. We buy direct from the distributor and the material lands in the same number as the labor. Samples and larger offcuts come to the house so you choose in your own light.
My house is from the 1920s. Can the floor still be sanded?
Often, but it is a measurement rather than an assumption. Only the wood above the tongue can be sanded, and a floor that has been refinished twice already may have one pass left. We check at the edge of a board before quoting.
Nearby neighborhoods
Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at
Custom Stair Installation in East Kensington starts with someone reading the house. We quote every job ourselves, with no salesperson in between, and a photo of the floor gets you a straight answer faster than a form does.
