Q: If wood stair risers are sanded too thin when attempting to be restained, can the risers be removed and replaced with new risers?
A: Are you saying the existing risers are veneer? You can always apply a new veneer over top.
Follow-up Q: Our brand new treads, that had 2 coats of urethane on them, needed to be stripped and restained (after winning a lawsuit against the seller of the home). Our new contractor stripped them back to natural and restained them. He also thought he had to strip the risers so they could be stained to match the staining of the treads. When he restained the risers after they had been stripped they came out horribly splotchy. They have not put any urethane on the treads or risers yet until they fix the problem this week. The manager on Saturday told me over the phone something about adding a new veneer over top. Having heard this from you is the best news I could have.
A: If the guys were trying to strip and stain veneer, I wouldn’t be too hard on them. It is about near to impossible to do. Especially if they were factory done previously. That would help explain why it came out blotchy.
Second Follow-up Q: The owner just left and they are going to replace the risers. Is this easy to do? He only wanted to replace half saying some are not that bad, but I left him a message saying to do them all and we will pay for the other half. Do you think it will cost much to pay for 8 risers for standard wooden stairs?
A: To actually replace the riser itself, one would have to have access to the back side of the stair case I would think. It seems a bit extreme to me, but if that is what they want to do, hey! It actually might not cost that much more to do than applying a veneer.