Advice on Oak stair nosing

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porker

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Hi,
I'm currently getting through a major refurb of my ground floor having gone open plan and now thinking about the flooring. I am laying 20mm engineered oak planks that glue together along the long edge but are floating on my concrete floor on a membrane. My house has several levels so there are a couple of steps I need to contend with.

What I would like are opinions on whether what I am proposing will work or if there is a better method. The orientation of the planks is such that one step is across plank ends and the other along its length.

I have some solid oak long enough to make these nosings and was proposing to route a tongue and groove as per the other planks, create a bull nose on the front and glue these on. Is there an issue with too much overhang on the steps risking the oak splitting along the grain from constantly being stepped on? It would be good to know if anyone else has done this.
 
I think I would use the full width of the engineered oak strip in use I think as you say the nosing would break away unles it was supported.
 
I've got a long edge step between two rooms, done years ago in Kahrs 15mm engineered oak floor. No problems in use
The Kahrs instructions here

https://issuu.com/abgustafkahr/docs/kah ... 4/43554542

has a diagram on page 15 showing how to do it. In theory this could be done across ends of boards but only if you arranged for the engineered tongues to all be in the right place together.

Short answer - buy the maker's specific moulding and glue and screw it in place.
 
If you glue anything across the end grain you are stopping it being a floating floor because the boards can't expand and contract anymore in width.

Could you make the bullnoses maybe 90 mm wide, tongued and grooved in as you say with maybe 25 mm overhang? You could glue the one that is parallel to the grain on to the wooden flooring but fix the one that is across the grain to the sub floor but not to the wood flooring which would still allow the floor to expand in width?

To be honest I have some engineered flooring which is fixed in place on my landing, because of bull noses around the edges etc it can't move, I keep expecting something to give but it has been there 11 years now and nothing has moved.
 
Thanks for the responses. Some good points that I will take into account. Thanks AndyT for the doc, that is useful. Doug, I like your idea of fixing the nosing piece with plenty of support. Given where it is I think this would work. My experiece with a previous solid floating floor is that all the expansion is across the boards rather then along the grain. I am hoping this is less with engineered floor. I will put plenty of support in with a small overhang. The piece along the board I will purchase the nosing from the manufacturer which I have found they can supply.
Thanks all again.
 
Here is part of the landing at the top of my stairs as I mentioned, not quite the same as yours as the cross grain nosings are not walked on, they only carry the spindles but same idea. Think I grooved board ends and bullnoses then fitted a loose tongue but can't really remember.

stair 1.jpg


stair 2.jpg
 

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Hi Doug - Thanks for the detail in those pictures. That will also come in useful when I tackle our stairs but thats another phase. They are a bit odd in that they are cast in concrete and the plan is the clad them in oak at a later stage.
The loose tongue would probably work better for me so I can cut identical grooves on both rather than machine a tongue on all the ends.
 
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