Stairs & Railings
Stair Refinishing in Kensington, Old, Philadelphia
Stairs take more wear per square foot than any floor in the house, and they are sanded almost entirely by hand. In Kensington, Old, Philadelphia the median home dates to 1997 and 25.8% of the housing predates 1940, which changes what Deco Hardwood Floor expects to find before the work starts.
Stair refinishing, one staircase at a time
In Kensington, Old stairs range from original joined work to later factory parts, and each one is assessed on what it is made of before it is sanded.
Older treads are thick solid boards that can take a careful sanding. Some later stairs have treads with a thin hardwood face, and those can only be abraded lightly and recoated. Looking at the edge of a tread at the open side of the stair tells us which.
Color is the other decision. A stair sits between two floors, and when those floors are different ages the stain is chosen on samples so the stair connects them without matching one and clashing with the other.
Before you get a quote
If the house was built before 1978, painted stair parts are sanded with containment and extraction. We ask the year at the estimate.
How the housing in Kensington, Old compares
Of the 3,051 housing units in Kensington, Old, roughly 790 were built before 1940 and approximately 1,300 before 1978.
That makes the housing here newer than the 132 Philadelphia neighborhoods in our data taken together, where approximately 82.8% of 733,961 units predate 1978, and below the 60.5% figure for our whole service area. By the share built before 1940, Kensington, Old ranks 94th of those 132. The full table is published as open housing data.
| Place | Median year built | Built before 1940 |
|---|---|---|
| Kensington, Old | 1997 | 25.8% |
| Northern Liberties | 1997 | 30.7% |
| Kensington, West | 1937 | 52.1% |
| Yorktown | 1983 | 9.1% |
| Fishtown - Lower Kensington | 1928 | 69.4% |
| East Kensington | 1943 | 48.9% |
| West Poplar | 1989 | 21.2% |
For stair refinishing, the pre-1978 share is the figure that matters. Painted risers and balusters in those houses are sanded under the federal lead rule.
What is usually under the floor here
Prewar and postwar housing sit side by side, so the right answer changes house to house and sometimes street to street.
Places with this mix were built across a long stretch, and the floors follow. One block holds original strip oak over joists with a thin wear layer left, and the next holds postwar red oak over a plywood subfloor with most of its thickness intact.
That is why we do not quote this kind of address over the phone. The same service can be a straightforward refinish on one side of a street and a restoration decision on the other, and the only way to know is to look at the edge of a board.
Worth knowing here
Additions are the common surprise. A kitchen bumped out in the 1970s often carries a different floor from the rest of the house, and matching the two is its own conversation.
Whether the federal lead rule applies depends on the house
Approximately 42.1% 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 stair refinishing runs
We look at the nosings
That is where wear shows first, and it decides refinish versus retread.Structure checked
Loose treads and squeaks addressed before finishing, because finish does not fix movement.Sanding, mostly by hand
Machines where they reach, hand work everywhere else.Finish applied
Coats on the cure schedule of the specified product.Staged so you can use the house
Where there is only one staircase, the schedule is built around that.
What stair refinishing includes, and what it does not
Stair refinishing covers checking the structure, sanding the treads, risers and visible stringer, and applying stain and finish. It does not put wood back where the nosing has worn away, and balusters are a separate decision because each one is done by hand.
Included
- A look at every nosing, to confirm the treads can be refinished.
- Loose treads and squeaks addressed before any finish is applied.
- Sanding of treads, risers and the visible stringer, by machine where it reaches and by hand elsewhere.
- A stain sample tested against your existing floor before the stair is stained.
- Finish coats applied by hand, on the cure schedule of the product.
- A schedule built around access when the house has only one staircase.
Not included, or quoted separately
- New treads. If the nosing is worn into the wood, that is retreading and a different quote.
- Balusters, unless you ask for them. Each one is sanded by hand, and it adds real time.
- A promise of a house without dust. Vacuum extraction catches most of it, not all of it.
What changes the price of stair refinishing
The price is set after we see the stair, not from its square footage. It moves most with the number of steps, with whether the balusters are refinished too, and with what has to come off the wood before new finish can go on.
| What changes it | How it moves the price | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Number of steps | Each step is a tread, a riser and several inside corners worked by hand, so the count of steps drives the hours. | A flight of fourteen risers has fourteen horizontal surfaces, fourteen vertical ones and a corner at every joint. |
| Balusters in or out | Refinishing balusters means sanding and coating each one by hand. Painting them, or leaving them alone, removes most of that time. | Treads and handrail refinished, with risers and balusters painted, is a common and faster version of the same job. |
| What is on the wood | Paint, old carpet staples and tack strip holes take more work to deal with than a worn clear finish, and all of it comes before stain. | A hardwood stair that was painted or carpeted over needs more preparation than one with a tired coat of polyurethane. |
| Open or closed stair | An open side adds the tread returns and the outside face of the stringer, plus more edges to work around the balusters. | A stair between two walls has fewer surfaces than one open to a hallway with balusters set into every tread. |
| Color change and finish type | Changing the color adds stain and sample work. The finish chosen sets the cure time between coats, which sets how the job is staged. | Waterborne finish lets you back on the stair far sooner than oil-modified polyurethane, so the two are scheduled differently. |
The full method, the equipment and what we will and will not promise are on the service page: Stair Refinishing.
Also in Kensington, Old
Hardwood Floor Refinishing
Sand the old finish off, repair what needs repairing, and put a new finish down
Dustless Floor Sanding
Vacuum-extraction sanding
Solid Hardwood Floor Installation
Solid wood, nailed down over a wood subfloor
Engineered Hardwood Installation
Real wood over a stable core
Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) Installation
Waterproof, quiet, and it does not care about a wet basement
Custom Stair Installation
Treads, risers, stringers and skirt board, built to a drawing instead of a catalog page
Hardwood Floor Repair
Board replacement, weaving in new wood, squeaks, gaps and cupping
Why homeowners hire Deco Hardwood Floor
Deco Hardwood Floor is owner operated: the person who quotes stair refinishing in Kensington, Old is the person responsible for it, and the material comes with the labor in one number.
Material and labor in one number
We buy the flooring direct from the distributor and pass the store price through, so you are not sourcing wood on your own between quotes.
Samples come to your house
Samples and larger offcuts come to you, so the color gets chosen in your own light instead of under a showroom lamp.
Stairs and railings built in house
Treads, risers, handrails and newel posts are drawn and built by our own crew. Most flooring crews subcontract stair work or decline it.
The owner quotes the job
The person who measures your floor is the person responsible for the work. There is no salesperson in between.
Measured before it is promised
Remaining thickness is measured at the edge of a board before we say a floor can be sanded, and no price is firm before we have seen the room.
Told straight, including the limits
Vacuum extraction catches most of the sanding dust and not all of it. We tell you that before the job instead of after.
More about who we are and what we will not claim on the About Deco Hardwood Floor page.
Questions about stair refinishing in Kensington, Old
Can you refinish stairs without doing the whole floor?
Yes, and it is common. Matching the new stair finish to an existing floor finish is the part that takes care, and it gets tested on a sample first.
My treads are worn through at the front edge. Can they still be refinished?
If the wear has gone into the wood at the nosing, sanding it flat removes the profile. At that point retreading, which is fitting new hardwood treads over the existing structure, is usually the better answer.
How long will the stairs be out of use?
It depends on the finish. Waterborne products let you back on far sooner than oil-modified polyurethane. Where the house has one staircase we tell you the schedule before starting.
Do the balusters get refinished too?
They can be, and it adds real time, because each one is done by hand. Many customers paint the risers and balusters and refinish only the treads and handrail, which looks good and moves much faster.
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.
Stair Refinishing near Kensington, Old
Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at
Stair Refinishing in Kensington, Old 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.
