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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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.