Special Staircase renovation with laminate, vinyl, LVT, or PVC floors

THE REALM OF UNLIMITED OPTIONS

STAIR COVERS MAKE RENOVATION OF CLOSED STAIRCASES IN PARTICULAR AN EXCELLENT CHOICE

Photo – Küberit

There are plenty of reasons for renovating a staircase. For instance, perhaps it is showing signs of wear and tear and you want to do something about it. The stairs may also have become slippery and therefore unsafe or the staircase is simply behind the times. Staircase renovation often involves the use of laminate, vinyl, or PVC, but the question is how to go about it and what the best options are and when. This article covers the various options.

What happens with a thorough renovation is that you can use stair covers, which are available in various materials. First of all, these stair covers are made customised and then fitted over the existing steps, always using an adhesive.

Staircase renovation with laminate

The material with which most people are familiar will be laminate. Here, it’s helpful to realise that you can go to work in two different ways.

You can opt for stair covers which are made from HDF. Another option is to finish the staircase with laminate. The laminate on the stairs is glued and you make use of corner profiles to finish the sides. These can be fitted in the colour of the laminate itself or in a contrasting colour. This sort of staircase renovation is recommended mainly for a closed staircase. It is also possible on an open staircase, but this is not often recommended because all the sides are finished with the corner profiles to yield a more solid look. In this case we discovered that PVC or vinyl is often a better choice.

Staircase renovation with PVC

The benefits of staircase renovation with PVC lie mainly in the durability and moisture resistance because there are no ‘bubbles’ due to damp. With a staircase renovation with PVC, you will use a levelling profile with this thin material which is glued to the staircase steps and where, with PVC, a levelling profile of barely 1.5mm will suffice to cover the corners. And so, you don’t need ordinary corner profiles as you do with laminate because there is much less height to cover. An open staircase can also be furnished with PVC, but be sure to take account of the levelling profiles which are fitted on all sides of the staircase steps.

In addition, PVC is given an antibacterial treatment, doesn’t swell, and there are no differences in colour. Another advantage with PVC is the minimal impact sound and the material is given extra reinforcement with an additional protective layer. At present, researchers are working hard to ensure that the product can be recycled more to make it more ‘sympathetic’ to the environment.

Staircase renovation with vinyl

Just as with PVC, vinyl (which strongly resembles PVC) also has the advantage that the material stays durable for many years against wear and tear and it is easy to clean. Another advantage is that vinyl, just like PVC, is available in various colours so that there’s something to suit the interior.

The big advantage of vinyl is that, just like PVC, it consists of several layers. The difference between the two lies in the bottom layer. This bottom layer is softer with vinyl, so the material has a rather ‘springy’ nature. Vinyl also has a different material composition and thereby comes in many different sorts and sizes. PVC consists mainly of synthetics, so it is more solid and sturdy than vinyl (but often also a little more expensive).

If we consider vinyl from a trendy point of view, we can say that this material is ideal for modern and minimalist Interiors, certainly because there are no visible joints. The material thereby has no splits or gaps which could attract dirt. Moreover, vinyl can also be recycled, so it is an ecological choice.

Sources: Profitrap and laminaatenparket.nl

Two specialists

Küberit

Safe, beautiful, easy to install The universal Küberit profiles for staircase renovations The idea of easy-to-install stair nosing profiles that can be laid with LVT and laminate came earlier from the think tank in Lüdenscheid. The successor model 847 which is based on already successful stair nosing solutions for LVT can now also be used with laminate. Thanks to a special spring supplied, this profile can be used for coverings from 2.5 to 9.5 mm. The profile with the type designation 847 also has outside corners and end caps, so this profile can also be used on one side or completely open stairs. Stair treads are exposed to high loads every day. Therefore, Küberit pays attention to highest material and manufacturing quality when developing its profiles and thus guarantees a long product life. At the same time, the convenient, time-saving Küberit assembly technology minimises possible processing errors. Profile 847 and the matching fittings are available in the modern anodised colours silver and stainless steel look as well as black powder-coated. The 3 m length is supplied countersunk drilled with fixing material as standard, but can also be mounted with a suitable adhesive.

Progress Profiles

In case of stair renovation, it’s essential to check out the quality of the material used and to choose profiles to protect stairs exposed to wear. Progress Profiles offers a very wide range of profiles for LVT, vinyl and PVC floors. They are required mostly to cover the joint between two types of floor, ensuring a unique aesthetic effect; but they are also used to protect steps and to compensate floors with different heights or thickness. Among the several profiles, Progress Profiles realized SOL 30P, TERMINAL PIN and ZERO CURVE, specific for LVT floors and composed of a BASE in PVC to fix to the support and of three TOP to choose on the base of the application. For what concerns laminate, Progress Profiles has patented a new performing laying solution, Promultifix System: it’s composed of a special TOP with adhesive, covered with wood-effect film or in anodized aluminium, to join floors at the same level or to connect those at different levels, to cover joints and also to finish the flooring along the perimeters.