Sanding down stairs

[mrtEE]

I have wooden staircases in my house (2 of them as its 3 storey) but someone has painted them white, including the steps.

This is not practical as the paint chips and it shows up the dirt very well. So i want to sand them down to wood, and think it will look better. Will just be sanding the steps down and leaving the banisters etc. white.

What is the easiest/quickest/best/cheapest way of sanding them back to the wood? Don't fancy doing it with a sheet of sandpaper as it would be back breaking and take weeks.

[Mrs Kickstart]

Hi

Probably best to hire something like This a normal b&q sander would probably take ages

Regards
C
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[Feasty]

Just cut up a few sheets of sandpaper roughly a foot square, attach elastic to the back of them. Then leave half of them at the bottom of the stairs and half at the top and ensure everyone who walks up and down those stairs puts the sandpapersheets over their feet first, then takes them off at the other end. That way there will always be sheets available at the top and bottom of the flights of stairs and within a month you should have well sanded stairs!!
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[mrtEE]

[Kwaks]

What sort of paint is it?

Would a heat gun not be more practical?
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[mrtEE]

[map]

If on wood likely to be gloss paint.
I'd go with paint stripper (Nitromors), follow the instructions.
Do every other tread & riser first, clean it up, then repeat on the remaining treads/riser (please don't ask why, think about it)
After removing it use wire wool to remove any other paint from the grain and in corners.
Like sandpaper you can get different grades or wire wool, work from high to low numbers.
The wire wool will allow you to get into corners more.

After that sanding is an option, the floor edging type one mentioned above plus you can get detailed sanders (shaped like an clothes iron).
Should be able to rent from you local HSS or similar tool hire place.

Other than that google is your friend.
A quick search gave these results

Remember you'll need to protect the wood so look into stains or oils. You don't want stairs slippy so don't varnish them eh!
HTH
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[Skudd]

Carpet.
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[Kwaks]

[Tonka]

Gloss paint on the stairs - bet you get down stairs nice and quick!!

You can hire belt sanders and as long as you go with the grain you should have quite a good result, but it will be blo00dy messy and take ages! Even the ones that attach to vacuum cleaners make more dust than you can imagine You'll get through heaps of sand paper too and the ones they supply are quite pricey.

Heat guns are good and quickish, but I'm not very good with them and always manage to burn a bit by leaving it on too long getting all impatient! Tends to ruin the 'naked' finish if you have a feck off big burned bit, which will always be somewhere really obvious 'cos that's the way it happens!!
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[Flip]

I thought 'down stairs' was you being poilte.