I'm laying down floating wood floors near some stairs, but the stair nosing on the subfloor is in the way of the new stair nosing. How can I deal with this?

Submitted by beep41 t3_zvs9g2 in DIY

I have this exisiting nose in the subfloor, and then I have this new nose that matches the floors I'm putting down. The existing nose is thick, and will definitely show underneath the new one so it needs to be eliminated.

So far the only solutions I've come across was cutting it off with a circular saw or jig saw, or trying to try it up and lay down some ply wood. To be honest I'm not sure I'm confident in either options (but the saw method seems most viable). Are there any other options, or guides online on how to do it one of those two ways?

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M0U53YBE94 t1_j1qu7ee wrote

Yeah, I'd skill saw it off. Set your depth a Little shallow of full depth so that you can pry away the cut piece.

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ballpointpin t1_j1r0cid wrote

Agree. After sawing off the old nosing, I'd probably get a really thin 1/4" (or less) sheet of nice plywood and glue/nail it to the riser of that top step before putting on your new bullnose. This will hide that ugly horizontal line left when you cut that nosing. Use something like polyurethane construction adhesive to stick it on, then use latex caulk around the sides and bottom to hide the gap.

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MissionCreeper t1_j1qv2cw wrote

I am not an experienced floor person or anything, but that looks like regular hardwood flooring to me, i thought subfloor was usually cheap garbage wood that looks terrible, I doubt they would have put work into making a nose on a floor that was meant to be covered up. Looks old too.

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beep41 OP t1_j1qzjil wrote

To the best of my knowledge it's the subfloor, the 1st floor has the same thing and we can see the underside in the basement.

The house is from the 1850's, so it's very old.

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hamsterdave t1_j1r6lg9 wrote

I think I agree with the guy above. I think it was the original floor, there may not be a true “subfloor” in the way we think of it now. In my family’s mid-19th century house, there’s a lot of thick hardwood plank straight on the joists.

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Frosty-Start-4559 t1_j1r1gne wrote

That looks like original hardwood to me. I am not certain, but typically old homes had sub-flooring run at a 45 degree angle, or no subfloor at all, like your basement due to thicker boards.

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