Contact us

Before you write in

Many questions are already answered in more depth than a short reply could offer. If you are trying to work out a length or a cost, our measurement guide and cost guide are usually faster than waiting for a reply, and if your staircase has an unusual feature such as a winder or an open string, our winder stair runner guide covers the extra steps involved.

Email

Write to editorial@stairrunner.co. We read everything and reply to corrections first. There is no phone line and no live chat — the site is run as a written publication, and email keeps a clear record of what was asked and what was answered, which matters most for corrections.

We aim to acknowledge messages promptly, though response times vary. Corrections with a clear source attached are generally the fastest to act on, since there is little for us to verify beyond checking the source against the page.

Reporting a correction

To help us act quickly, include:

• The address of the page
• The sentence or figure you believe is wrong
• What it should say, and a source if you have one

Verified corrections are applied to the page and reflected in its update date, as set out in our editorial policy. If a correction affects a calculation used elsewhere on the site, such as the method behind our runner length calculator, we check every guide that relies on it, not only the page where the error was spotted.

Not every message we receive turns out to be an error in the guide itself. Sometimes the figure is correct but poorly explained, and the fix is to clarify the wording rather than change the substance. Either way, tell us what confused you — even a correction request that turns out to be a misunderstanding on our side of the explanation is useful, because it tells us the page did not communicate clearly enough.

Asking a question

If a guide leaves a question unanswered, tell us. Reader questions shape what we publish next, and specifics help — the staircase type, the material you are considering, and what you have already been quoted or told. A question that names the exact situation (a curved staircase with a runner that has failed at the third winder, say) is far more useful to us than a general one, and it is also more likely to get you a useful reply if we are able to point you to something existing rather than write something new.

We cannot promise a personal reply to every question, particularly ones that depend on seeing the staircase in person, but recurring questions are a direct input into which guides we write or expand next. If several readers ask about the same gap — a staircase shape we have not covered, a material comparison we have not made — that gap gets prioritised.

Editorial and other enquiries

Journalists, researchers and other publishers are welcome to get in touch about citing or referencing our guides. Suppliers or manufacturers who spot a factual issue with how a product or material is described are also welcome to write in — we welcome corrections from anyone with direct knowledge, and we assess them against the same sourcing standard as any other correction, described in the editorial policy.

We do not accept guest posts, paid placements or requests to add promotional links to existing guides. Any commercial enquiry along those lines will be declined; our current position on commercial content is set out on the about page.

Response times

The site is maintained by a small editorial team, so replies are handled in the order they arrive rather than instantly. If your message is time-sensitive — for example you are mid-project and a page contains something you believe is wrong — say so plainly in the subject line, and include the page address so we can look at it immediately rather than searching for it.

What we cannot do

• Provide site-specific structural, safety or building-code advice. Those decisions need somebody who can see the staircase.
• Recommend a particular retailer or installer in your area.
• Accept payment for coverage or for a favourable assessment.
• Quote a price for your specific job — costs depend on measurements, material and regional labour rates, which our cost guide explains but cannot substitute for a quote from someone who has measured your stairs.

What happens after you write in

Every message that arrives goes through the same short process. First, it is read and sorted by type — correction, question or other enquiry — because each type has a different owner and a different standard for what counts as resolved. A correction is checked against the page and, where possible, against the source you supply or a source we find independently. A question is checked against existing guides before anyone drafts a reply, because there is no benefit in writing a fresh explanation of something we have already explained in full. An enquiry that falls outside both categories, such as a request to reference a guide elsewhere, is routed to whoever handles that relationship.

If your message turns out to need input from more than one person — for instance, a correction that touches a figure used by both a guide and the runner length calculator — it can take longer to close out than a straightforward one-line fix. We would rather take the extra time and check every place a figure is used than issue a fast fix in one location that leaves an inconsistency somewhere else on the site.

What makes a good correction report

The single most useful thing you can send us is the exact wording you believe is wrong, not a paraphrase of it. "The measurement guide says to add a waste allowance of a specific percentage and I do not think that is right" is harder for us to act on quickly than quoting the actual sentence, because pages are updated and a paraphrase may no longer match what is currently published. If you can, copy the sentence directly from the page rather than describing it from memory.

It also helps to say what you were trying to do when you found the issue. Somebody checking a runner length calculation for a straight flight is in a different situation from somebody applying the same figures to a flight with winders, and knowing which one you were doing lets us judge whether the fix belongs on the general guide, on the specialist one, or on both.

Questions we get asked often

A handful of situations account for a large share of the messages we receive that turn out to already have a full answer on the site. If your question concerns any of the following, it is worth checking the relevant guide before writing in, since you will usually get a fuller answer faster than a reply could give you:

• How much runner to buy for a specific staircase — see the runner length calculator and the measurement guide it is built on.
• Whether a runner or fully fitted stair carpet suits a particular household — see runner versus fitted stair carpet.
• What a fair price range looks like for supply and fitting — see stair runner installation cost.
• How to keep a runner looking good over years of use — see stair runner cleaning.

Accessibility of this site

If you experience a technical problem using the site — content that will not load, navigation that does not work with a screen reader or keyboard, or text that is difficult to read — please tell us through the same contact address. Treat these reports as seriously as a factual correction; a guide that cannot be read is no more useful than one that is wrong.

Working with the site as a resource

Readers sometimes write in to ask whether they may reprint a table, share a link in a forum, or reference a figure in their own writing. Linking to a specific guide is always welcome and needs no permission. Reproducing our text or tables in full elsewhere is a different matter and something we would like to discuss first, mainly so we can flag if the page has since been revised — a copied table that is not kept in sync with an update can end up spreading an outdated figure long after we have corrected it here.

If you are a student, researcher or writer working on staircases, flooring or home renovation more broadly and want to check a specific claim before relying on it, ask us directly rather than guessing at our sourcing. We would rather spend five minutes confirming how we arrived at a figure than have it repeated inaccurately somewhere else.

If you disagree with a judgement, not a fact

Not every message we receive is about a factual error. Sometimes a reader has fitted a runner a different way, chosen a different material for good reasons specific to their household, or reached a different conclusion about a trade-off we describe as a matter of judgement rather than settled fact. We welcome that kind of message too. Where a guide presents something as a judgement call — for instance which fibre suits a household with pets, covered in wool versus synthetic stair runners — disagreement does not mean the page is wrong, but it can still tell us the reasoning needs to be explained more clearly, or that we have missed a relevant consideration worth adding.

We distinguish this from a correction because the action is different: a factual error gets fixed outright, while a difference of judgement more often leads to a page being expanded to cover the situation we had not considered, rather than rewritten. Either way, telling us about it is useful, and we read every message with that distinction in mind rather than assuming disagreement means something has gone wrong.

A note on tone

We would rather receive a blunt message that says exactly what is wrong than a polite one that hedges around it. If a page frustrated you, tell us why in direct terms — it is more useful to us than a general complaint, and it is treated exactly the same as any other correction request regardless of how it is phrased.

Before contacting us about a rental property

If you are a tenant, landlord or letting agent with a question about a runner in a rental property, say so at the start of your message. The considerations for a rented home are often different from those for an owner-occupied one — deposit deductions, landlord permission, and the balance between durability and low replacement cost tend to dominate the decision, and our reply, or the guide we point you towards, will be more useful if we know that context from the outset rather than assuming a typical owner's priorities apply.