Has anyone ever replaced stairs ?

[ktzmoh]

We are prepping for a kitchen/dining room remodel that will involve replacing/finishing the floors throughout the one level of our house - kitchen, dining room, and living room.  We have a  half flight of stairs that goes up from our living room to the upper level and a half flight that goes down to a lower level family room. The stairs are totally trashed, they need new treads, the risers are super jacked up, and the piece of trim that goes between the treads/risers and the wall is also super trashed. I would like to replace it all as part of the remodel.

The flooring guy quoted us $1500 to just replace treads (no risers or trim), and finish the treads. That seems insane to me and our stairs seem straightforward, so I'm thinking of doing them myself. I'm a reasonable carpenter. I've made built-ins, a mantel, and trimmed out all my windows.  So I'm wondering if this is a job I can do myself or if there is something I'm not understanding that makes it too complicated to do on my own. If I get in over my head, it winds up being a real PITA because we would have to go out through the front door and in through the garage to avoid the stairs.

Has anyone ever torn out and replaced their stairs before? Am I biting off more than I can chew? Words of wisdom?

ETA: I should add we don't have any railings or spindles to work around. As far as I can tell from measuring under the stairs from the crawlspace and above the stairs, the risers and treads are attached to three stringers, but that the trim piece that sits against the wall just butts up to the treads and risers (ie there doesn't seem to be any cutouts in the trim and the treads dont seem to be set into the trim board - does that makes sense? I don't know all the correct terminology).

[trissie18]

We are in the process of gutting and renovating my brother's entire house. We took a set of unsafe scary narrow stairs and replaced them with a brand new wide set with multiple platforms. My husband's friend who is a carpenter by trade did all of the calculations and helped pre-cut the runners and treads. It made installation super easy. In our case we went from a straight steep design to a U shape design with two platforms so if yours are a straightforward replacement I would think you could use the current measurements.

Here are the old stairs


Here are the new stairs. Unforuntately, I don't have better pictures on my computer of the full U shape.
_

[simpsongal]

It sounds straightforward enough - have you priced out the material? I suspect oak stair treads can be very expensive. Also did the quote entail the sanding and finishing work? I'd be inclined to have a carpenter handle the installation and I would handle the finishing work.

[Violet]

His quote sounds on par to the quotes I received. Every floor refinisher said it's very labor heavy to stain and materials are higher priced.

Since we were doing the basement and not the main staircase we ended up DIYing. I bought these: www.homedepot.com/p/36-in-x-11-1-2-in-Unfinished-Solid-Red-Oak-Stair-Tread-8430R-036-0000L/202353497  and oak trim and stained them myself. I replaced the risers with a cheaper wood and painted those white. Installed with glue and a nailer (glue is important to prevent squeaks). If you've done trim before then i'm sure you can handle this. In all honesty I bet we spent close to $600 in the end. If you value time then it might be worth hiring out. 

Edit: to expand a bit, I thought the PITA part was the staining and sanding and waiting. Install is pretty easy.
Edit 2: I also used this website as reference and I thought about buying prefinished treads. Maybe another option for you? www.stairsupplies.com/product/8070-stair-treads/ 

[atarianna]

We just built and did the stairs ourselves.

The cost of the treads themselves were over $1600 unfinished. We needed white oak R&Q to match the hardwoods and in 48” lengths so they were over $100 per tread. Then I sanded, stained and finished each one. I don’t think the $1500 price seems bad.

[aprilsails]

My BIL does stairs for a living and he did the ones for our new house. Risers, red oak treads, steel spindles and red oak rails and posts were $6000, and he did all the labour for free. $1500 seems fairly reasonable, even if only for the treads.