Stair nosings, also known as stair edgings, improve safety on staircases by covering the edges of your wood flooring where the riser and tread meet. They also protect your stairs from wear and tear and help to define their edge.
Custom floor nosing come in various styles to match your flooring, including square and bullnose finishes. Here are some important things to consider when choosing the right stair-nosing style for your home or business:
Safety
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Stair nosing, or stair trim, is installed to protect the edge of your stairs from wear and tear. It also helps define the edge of your steps and make them easier to see. This increases safety and decreases the risk of falling on the stairs, which can happen when people miss a step or misstep as they walk up or down them.
Overlapping stair nosings have a small lip that adds traction to prevent slips and falls. This feature is more forgiving than a flush nose in case of small mistakes during installation. Overlapping stair noses also look better and match more easily with traditional hardwood flooring than flush stair noses.
Manufacturer-provided floor vents and matching stair nosings are a good option in some cases. Still, they often don’t work as well with more complex staircases or are limited in profile and design options. Instead of settling for a kooky “close enough” solution, learning how to build custom-fabricated stair noses will give you an elegant finish with more options and create a seamless transition between your flooring and stairs.
Durability
Stair nosings, also known as stair edgings or stair trim, offer safety enhancement and improve the durability of a staircase. They help prevent slips and falls and improve visibility in low-light conditions while protecting the edges of the stair treads from excessive wear patterns.
A quality stair nosing is the perfect finishing touch to your staircase, adding to its safety and visual appeal. It also helps prevent damage to your stair treads and floor covering by hiding the joint between the flooring product and the stairs.
Stair noses are fabricated from the same flooring as the rest of your floor and can be custom-stained to match your plank floors. Choose from either an overlapping or flush nose to suit your needs and project requirements.
Style
Stair nosing creates a beautiful finished look on your stairs and helps to make your home or office safer. By slightly increasing the surface area of the steps and highlighting the location of each one, our brains can better process where each step ends, helping to reduce accidents on staircases.
Manufacturer-provided matching stair noses may be convenient, but they often need to be narrower in profile and offer limited design options. A fabricated stair nose is more versatile and can work in a wider range of applications, including capping off the top edge of stairs not part of a landing or handrail.
A stair nose is also a great place to add a design feature or highlight a specific color. We recommend using a contrasting material for the stair nose to create a unique look or to match the trim in your flooring to create a seamless transition.
Aesthetics
Stair nosings are a great way to improve the look of a staircase. They add a clean finish to the stairs, making them appear as one piece of construction. Nosings also help to protect the edges of the stairs from wear. This prevents damage from shoes and furniture and extends the life of the stair treads and floor-covering material.
Stair nosing can come in a variety of profiles and finishes. They can be used with both traditional round and square stair treads. Many manufacturers offer overlapping stair nosings that are color-matched to their flooring products. These stair nosings are only sometimes an ideal solution as they often result in a bulky, kitschy appearance and only approximate a match.
Whether or not local building regulations require them, quality stair-nosing strips can provide safety and enhanced visibility for all users. They can also help to protect property owners from costly lawsuits by preventing accidents.
