Hello community, I noticed that this stair step in my european 60ies house was a bit cracked so I broke it off completely. How would you fix this? Some mortar or tile glue? Does it need some kind of rebar?
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Unfortunately those bullnose tiles are always going to be prone to breaking off because they're jutting out from the stair and are built from materials that are strong in compression, not tension.
Clean the edges and glue them on. Expect them to fail again.
I added a new picture showing how much broke off. This is no simple re-gluing unfortunately.
You can definitely glue it back. It just won't ever be permanent. Those stairs are made to break.
I'll give that a try. Why do you mean that they are meant to break? They have lasted for 60 years now, that's not too bad.
Those stairs have a bullnose that juts out and the whole thing is made from mortar. Mortar is very strong in compression but weak in tension. So a load on the tip of the stairs will put a large tension load on the top of that bullnose where it meets the stair corner. At some point it will break off.
Makes sense.