Do you have slippery treads in your home? Prevent accidents.

Traditionally when new houses are build they get a new stairs made of the cheapest pinewood that is available. Most of the times these

stairs are covered up with carpet so it doesn’t really matter what kind of wood it is. You can create a beautiful stairs very fast and easy by covering the stairs with a modern color carpet and the cheap wood used to build the stairs is not seen anymore, which is a perfect solution. Also the carpet gives a good grip to the treads so it is not only for beauty but also for safety that people choose carpet. The stairs will be easy to walk on with socks or bare feet.

After a matter of time the carpet will get dirty though and will wear off on the edges, that could create a new slippery feeling when using the stairs. The last couple of years this is one of the reasons why people rather paint the stairs instead of carpeting. They remove the old dirty carpet, clean the stairs from any glue and other rests of material and use good quality sandpaper to make the surface smooth again.

Once the stairs is painted it will look as new and have a beautiful appearance again, but non the less people forget that because of this paint layer the stair steps can become a bit slippery again. Of course there are ways to get rid of the slippery effect by a couple of options. Create yourself a safe stairs again with this antislip choices.

1 Create a rut in every tread and get a infreesstrip.Maak in iedere traptrede een groefje met de freesmachine voor de traditionele infrees strip

This kind of strip is a very old method to create safety for your stairs. Even if the strip is old and weared out, it can easily be replaced by another one because the rut is already there. If you don’t have a rut yet, you could use a special machine to do so or ask a professional to do it for you. This will of course cost you some more money, but it might be worth it if you don’t have so much renovation experience. Costs for getting this done is about €150-€200,-.

Don’t forget that you need to get the rid done before you are gonna paint your stairs, if you plan on renovating it and giving it a new fresh look.

2 Get yourself a rubber adhesive strip specially designed for stairs.

This strip is specially made for stair treads and is available in four different colors. Top thing about this product is that it can be easily applied by yourself. Because the strip is very width it gives an optimal grip and because of this it is also very sustainable. With a scissors it is quiet easy to cut the strip in the exact right size. If you need you could use some pencil linings to make sure you put the strip straight on the stair treads, about 1,5cm from the front of the stair treads (this is usually the spot where you place your feet).

3 Half moon stair mats made of carpet or rubber.

This product can be used very well on flat stair steps. If you have painted your stairs, but you are not really happy with the steps because they do not have enough grip this could be a solution. These half moon shaped mats can only be a success if the stair steps are not weared out to much, because the entire surface of the mat should be sticking to the surface of the tread. If not, like with old stairs, there is a big change they will not stick enough and will let go, or will start to curl up at the edges, especially the ones made of carpet. If you choose a mat made of rubber, there is a big chance you will hear some noice when you use one from plastic or rubber, you will suffer from hearing some more noise then you are used to. This product has some downsides, but also a lot of positive qualities so you could consider buying these stair mats. They are available in different colors but also sizes and qualities, so better get well informed.

4 Treat your stairs with a special paint created for stair steps.

There are different kinds of antislip paints for sale that say they create a good grip on your treads. Unfortunately this is not the case. When you walk the stairs with bare feet it will give you a little bit of grip, but if you use your socks often the stair treads are still to slippery and not safe at all. It is not that easy to apply the paint or at least to create a new look and also the paint wears off pretty easily. If you want to improve this a little, you could apply another layer of a transparante topcoat. An option for this is the 2 component polyurethane lacquer. This will help to prevent wearing out and the paint getting of the stairs when it is often used, but it will also take you quiet some time to get this job done.