Our prior home had an open staircase - meaning no risers, just treads - so when we had the entire house repainted/replaced carpet and flooring and I wanted LVP in the front entry hall and stairs where before there was carpet, we didn’t have to worry about the risers too because there were none. However, after the flooring installers came and removed the carpet they stopped to call me on the phone and immediately advised we replace all the treads with new ones due to the majority having cracks across the entire width, the wrong kind of tread brackets on all of them, and to not replace would mean our stairs were too dangerous to do not just the stairs but the loft bedroom second floor carpet plus LVP in the bathroom. There was too much liability risk for them to allow a roll of carpet to get dragged upstairs potentially endangering their workers. So we had them replace the treads and brackets, then complete the rest of the job. Of course this was a home built in a SoCal gated HOA back in 1978, with no grass but ‘waterscaped’ ponds and streams instead. When I bought the place in 2002 the whole community had to be termite tented about 4 months after I moved in, and the fact that at least 3 of the treads in worst condition hadn’t completely failed before the replacement was a miracle from heaven. It was a disaster waiting to happen going up and downstairs! Whether or not your stairs are in similar condition to what we had experienced, I don’t know. But the pictures don’t show any truly noticeable ‘flaws’. Even if the treads did have problems, the time to have that addressed is when the flooring business/installer comes in to consult and put together a contract for what’s being done. If they don’t see a reason/indicate a reason to the customer regarding to replacing treads, it may be because they’re fine or may be due to trying to avoid submitting a bid that takes them out of the running for the job because it’s too high. So if the look your stairs have now is so problematic you want them to redo the work, you will have to pay for the materials (again, can’t really reuse) and the labor (again, because businesses can’t afford to eat the cost of paying for their workers to do a replacement for free when those workers could be sent to another job that keeps the business in the black and remain in operation down the road).

All vinyl scratches...just some do it easier than others. And the visibility of the scratch will depend on the colour/pattern underneath. Torlys is a high-end brand - based on their cork products. Everything else they do has been an off-shoot of their cork business. Their vinyl should be at the top of the top (including price) of any list.

Elephant in the Room: "...we are having a friend do the install..." This is fine with flooring (as in hallways, bedrooms, etc) but not a great idea with stairs. As everyone has said (and I will repeat myself) stairs are EXPENSIVE because they deal with CODE. A 'friend' will have to be willing to take ALL LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY should the product that s/he applies cause A. injury or B. fail code. Most friends aren't that excited to be on the hook for 'helping out'. Carpets HIDE the WORST MATERIALS in the building world. By worst I mean CHEAP and POORLY made. That NORMALLY includes OSB. OSB can be the cheapest of the cheap. It is made up of 'chips' of wood glued together with a waxy substance. The very make up of OSB PREVENTS stuff from being GLUED to the surface. Enter: Vinyl stair covering. Vinyl planks/nosing MUST BE GLUED to the stair's substrate. Imagine the substrate as the WORST OSB possible. Stairs need to be strong and meet minimum code. Builders LOVE to use the CHEAPEST MATERIALS on stairs because stairs are INHERENTLY expensive. So....save $300 on the stairs and you have $300 in your pocket (the GC/Builder). So long as stairs are DESIGNED to be carpeted the architect and builder have NO INCENTIVE to make it out of anything other than OSB. I know this is all new to you. So I will spell this out for you: your assumption about plywood (plywood is EXPENSIVE = saved for places where it is NEEDED) is, sadly, a problem. A plywood stair would be AWESOME for your situation. But I would bet dollars to doughnuts you have OSB. And the subfloor UPSTAIRS is probably going to be OSB as well (see discussion about costs of plywood). OSB does VERY WELL under carpet. Carpet can cover hills and valleys and sagging sections of the subfloor (OSB does ALL of those things and MORE). As soon as you want to put down a rigid floor (where carpet used to be) you MUST ASSUME a LOT of patch/repair. Again, this is where the COST of the repair comes in. I have told my clients to BUDGET $2-$4/sf worth of SUBFLOOR REPAIR when removing carpet. Yes. That is the same price as the vinyl planks themselves. The subfloor repair can DOUBLE the cost of your project. Now ask your friend if s/he is GOING to do the 8-16 hours worth of work to PROPERLY prepare the subfloor upstairs. This is when using a friend gets tricky. So long as you are paying them FULL MARKET VALUE for their labour/skills, your friendship will remain solid. If they are doing this for beer and pizza, then things are going to get VERY tense. I know this is new to you, so be PREPARED for MUCH BIGGER project costs than you originally anticipated. If you have to repair the upstairs subfloor AND REBUILD (remove the OSB and then lay down NEW PLYWOOD on) the stairs you are in for a MASSIVE bill. Rebuilding stairs is worth the same price of the vinyl AND the cost of labour to repair the upstairs subfloor. It runs in the THOUSANDS of dollars. Just so you know.

it wasn't possible to patch the holes, maybe a little cover up. the real issue was that the stairs were constructed 40 years ago for carpet and the plywood was deteriorating, so the installer chose to nail the nose pieces to keep them place on inferior wood. thanks for asking!