Best Underlay For Stairs

Stairs see some of the heaviest foot traffic in any home, often equal to hallways and landings. Choosing the right underlay is essential for protecting your flooring, improving comfort, and ensuring long-term stability and safety. The right stair underlay provides durability, cushioning, and a noticeably more premium feel underfoot.

Your next task? Finding the perfect underlay for your stairs out of our collection of wonderful underlays designed to support all manner of needs.

In this article, we will narrow down your underlay choice, breaking down factors like thickness, noise reduction, and overall material quality to ensure you can make an informed decision. And if you’re still unsure? Contact our customer service team and we’ll help match the best underlay for your stairs.

What makes the best underlay for stairs?

The following are factors that make an underlay for stairs ideal.

Density

Density and thickness are often confused with one another, but they both serve different functions. Thickness makes up the measurement of the depth and is often associated with how cushioned the underlay is, the thicker your underlay generally, the more extra cushioning you’ll notice. Whereas density is all about durability. A stair underlay must prioritise density over softness because of concentrated foot pressure.

Many types of underlay boast high density. The most common flooring material for stairs in the UK is carpet, which is why many of our trade customers stock up on high density carpet underlays for their customers looking for new carpet on their stairs. One of the biggest examples of an appropriate carpet underlay is one of our top selling PowerWalk carpet underlay which boasts an impressive 155kg/m2 density.

Comfort

It’s important to point out one fact above all – the optimum thickness for your stairs underlay should always be 9-10mm (as our PowerWalk 9mm carpet underlay mentioned above is). Anything thicker can be hard to fit, not to mention uneven/unsafe underfoot. Aside from that, though, comfort underfoot is one of the most sought-after pros of an underlay regardless of where it’s placed because it’s the one thing customers can feel for themselves.

For stairs, the optimal thickness is always 9–10 mm, as anything thicker becomes difficult to fit safely around stair nosings. While thicker foams feel softer, they must still be dense enough to cope with the heavy, repetitive use that stairs receive. Our Floorsure Gold 10 mm foam underlay offers excellent comfort and ease of installation, but because it is designed for lighter domestic areas, it may not last as long as higher-density options like PowerWalk.

Noise Reduction

Stairs, on account of the concentrated weight being pressed on them, can sometimes be noisy. This leads a lot of clients to opt for an underlay that boasts high levels of sound reduction. PU foam and crumb rubber underlay both excel at this, as well as combination underlays (rubber and felt underlay combined).

Nonetheless, if you go for both thickness and high density, you will get an underlay that excels at reducing noise by extension in most cases. Our CombiFelt Acoustic underlay is an excellent example of a combination underlay that excels at noise reduction and is suitable for high traffic areas.

Stair and underlay material combo

The following section will revolve around the best underlayment and stair combos – because we recognise that not all stairs are carpeted in the UK so as a trade customer you’ll need to be prepared for your customers having any type of stair flooring in their home.

Foam Underlay

• Carpeted Stairs – Carpeted stairs are nice, soft and comfortable. But without any support, that comfort will soon fade, as the plush fibres of the carpet become worn and flattened by foot traffic, especially in the case of thinner carpets. PE foam underlays are ideal for LVT, laminate, engineered wood, and other floating floors. They are not recommended for carpeted stairs, as they lack the grip and density needed to support carpet properly.
• Laminate Stairs – Laminate stairs have two major weaknesses. For one, whilst they can look great, they can be noisy. The material has next to no sound absorption qualities, meaning the full noise of footsteps will be emitted from foot traffic.This can be improved by choosing an underlay for laminate that focuses on reducing noise, but be careful that the stability of the flooring isn’t compromised as you need to feel safe with every step you take.
• LVT Stairs – Ideally this should be glued down not floating like a click-lock floor as this will give you greater stability and last longer. You can use a sound reducing underlay, such as our SoundBarrier. Made from a high-density polypropylene foam, SoundBarrier will easily last the lifetime of the floor, even under the heaviest foot traffic. It creates a stable base which supports the floor for life and can reduce walking noise by up to 31%.

Combination Underlays

Combination underlays are a composite mix of several different materials. Calculating how much underlay is needed for your stairs, then, requires some knowledge of the specific material makeup of the underlay in question. Usually, these materials are rubber and foam, though sometimes also felt. They offer different benefits because of their unique material makeup.

Mixed Material Stairs

These stairs, made up of several materials, will often come with unique challenges. Whether noisy, low durability or just outright uncomfortable, you may find that the unique challenge is solved by a combination underlay, which makes up the best of several underlay factors.

High Traffic Stairs

High-traffic stairs require underlay that offers excellent compression recovery and high density to prevent flattening. Combination underlays provide the best balance of stability, longevity, and comfort, making options like QA’s CombiFelt Acoustic particularly suitable.

Best Carpet Underlay For Stairs Conclusion

We hope this guide helps you choose the right underlay for your stairs. Take a look at our full range and use our Traffilay product finder to discover the most suitable underlay for your customer’s needs.