How do I fit rubber tiles to a staircase or to individual stair treads as a stair covering?

A staircase is covered with rubber tiles by bonding an accurately cut stair covering to every tread and, where present, to every riser. The steps must be sound, clean, dry and free from dust before work starts. Old coverings are lifted and broken step edges are made good.

There are two ways of cutting the covering to size. The first works with square standard tiles that are trimmed to fit on site.

With the second, the customer supplies a DXF file with the digital dimensions of the steps and the stair covering is made up ready to lay at the works, so that on site it only has to be bonded down. The maximum width of a single stair tile is 103 cm. Wider steps are covered by two or more tiles that are joined by a precisely cut jigsaw interlock, leaving virtually no visible joint.

The stair covering builds up the height of every step. Because each tread gains the same thickness, the rises stay equal throughout the flight. The bottom and top steps are the exception. If the floor at the foot of the stairs and the landing at the top are left uncovered, the first step becomes higher by the thickness of the stair covering and the last step becomes lower by the same amount. Both are therefore better covered as well, or adjusted structurally.

Work progresses from the bottom of the flight upwards. Each riser is followed by the tread above it, whose rubber tile covers the top cut edge of the riser. Bonding is carried out with a permanently elastic PU adhesive at temperatures of 5 to 18 °C. The stairs must not be walked on until the adhesive has cured. A stair nosing is bonded to the front edge of every step to protect the stair covering from unnecessary wear.