Thanks so much for the input. Means I'm not crazy. Yes, I called the contractor & he agreed to redo the steps. They knew very well they weren't right. He will demo them & start over. When I'd hired them, I was very clear that the priority was safety, as my elderly mother was to be using them to access her in-law suite part of the house. They are not attached to the house, but part of the yard, at the end of a stone paver patio going down to lawn (inset with flagstone walk in the grass), replacing a set of wooden slat steps, so I didn't think a permit was necessary (not electrical, plumbing, structure), so no inspection. But when I called I told him my mother had already stumbled on them (true). I'm relieved they will redo them, but I'm worried they're just going to do them badly again, and wishing I'd done it myself. here's a picture, link to a before picture. garden stairs The risers were jarringly irregular: 5.25", 4.5", 5.25", 7.5", 6.5", and 7", the doozy being the >2inch drop in the middle. He said he would redo them all at 7.5", different # of steps, as if he were limited in the riser size. I originally want to follow the slope of previous stairs, which would have meant a shallower rise, more appropriate for a garden stair. 7.5 seems steep to me, and means a shorter run. I don't understand why he can't measure the rise & run & build a form to distribute them evenly over the same span? Is it really that tricky to build to size? Are there some standard forms out there or do they just not know what they're doing? If he does it with 7.5 risers, same total height, won't he need different railings, with a different angle? I'm very close to just asking him to demo, and firing them for this job (they also put in a mortored flagstone walk to our front door, which they did a good job on). If I did that, what would be a fair settlement for the work they did do? I'd pay them in full for the walk, and 20% of the stairs job? (they demo'd the previous stairs & hauled the debris). Would they be upset, or relieved to be off a job that's been problematic? 50% and call it a loss? I'm anticipating the cost on the stairs is ~3k (they didn't itemize it separately from the front walk job). sorry to ramble!

uscpsycho. I haven't re-read this entire post to understand who did your floors. I am in SoCal, and had a reputable flooring store install my engineered hardwood. I wanted the floorboards close enough to the wall so as not to need quarter round, but I planned for tall baseboard. They assigned their "A-team" to do my install since I was obviously a picky person, and they did a great job. But at least here, where people leave their doors open and no one runs a humidifier or de-humidifier, you have to plan for a certain amount of floor movement. Had I asked them for floors like yours butted up against the wall, no way in h*** would they have installed them like that. They are professionals and would not risk the unhappy outcome. What did you specifiy for your installers? Are they licensed, etc? Where are you located? Hardwood requires humidity/de-humidity and environmental controls. What you're asking is kind of an after-the-fact question. Do you want your floors corrected to be installed according to industry standards and best practices? I would. p.s. I'm not a pro. SJ Mcarthy, etc, please take over the responses now.

Hi. We did a “waterfall” treatment on our two stairs. The installer said he doesn’t do it very often, but we like it better than seeing it wrapped tightly around each stair tread.

This is exactly what I’m worried about. What did you end up doing?