Mount Balusters Without Drilling Into Wood Floors

Step 7 epoxy base shoes.

Mount balusters without drilling into wood floors.

Square baluster installation tips. Drill 1 4 inch to 1 2 inch into the tread floor. Use your best judgement as you should know the material you are installing into step 5 cutting iron balusters to size. Others are installed into a hole in the handrail and may have a wood dowel in the base which goes into the tread or floor.

This requires drilling a round hole and using a shoe to hide the left over gaps. Make sure everything lines up and the pattern is correct before adding glue. Insert the included installation screw into the connector and using a drill attach the connector centered on the marked locations. If the bottom portion of the wood baluster does not want to come up try rotating it counter.

This makes iron baluster installation clean easy and most importantly secure. Measure and cut your balusters 3 4 longer than the distance from the bottom of the handrail to the top of the base tread floor. Typically if your baluster extends into the upper hole 1 and the lower hole the depth of the upper hole is 1 2 deep. If you are installing the metal balusters in the same location as the old wood balusters you need to check the size and depth of the existing holes.

Be careful not to over tighten your connector. Hi so we did have to drill into the drywall. We purposely drilled out a deeper hole in top to give us this extra room. Not so tight that it has to be beaten down on top of it but not loose either.

Basically you want the size of the hole to allow the iron baluster to fit into it snugly. So drill a test hole and check the size. The hole must also be deep enough to allow the baluster to slide up into it high enough to clear the tread cap or landing shoe before it is straightened out and dropped into the 5 8 hole. The following visual guide showcases 6 different methods of installing square balusters with and without shoes.

Some balusters are simply toe nailed into place. Round hole with base shoe by far the fastest and easiest method. Remember to begin drilling vertically into the railing but once the screw connects with the wood adjust your drill to finish at the correct angle. Metal balusters that are 1 2 inch square will require that you drill at least a 3 4 hole in the floor and handrail surface.

The end of the baluster is rounded into a dowel. Wood balusters may be attached to the handrail and floor in a number of ways.