Ordering McNichols Stair Treads and Wire Mesh: A 6-Step Procurement Checklist

If you've ever been handed a maintenance request that just says "replace the stair treads," you know it's never as simple as it sounds. I'm a procurement manager at a mid-sized facility maintenance company, and I manage an annual materials budget of about $300,000. Over the past 6 years, I've placed hundreds of orders with McNichols and other metal product suppliers—and I've made plenty of mistakes along the way.

I've ordered the wrong material specification. I've paid rush freight on orders that should have been planned ahead. And once, I ordered a wire mesh panel that didn't fit because I trusted a hand-drawn sketch instead of measuring the opening myself.

This checklist comes from those mistakes. It has six steps, it takes about 20 minutes to work through, and it applies whether you're buying a single replacement tread or a facility-wide batch of McNichols stair treads and wire mesh.

Step 1: Measure the opening, not the old part

The most expensive mistake I ever made started with a simple decision: I trusted the dimensions stamped on the old stair tread instead of measuring the opening it sat in. I removed the old tread and frame, and the actual opening was nearly an inch wider than the old part. The replacement didn't fit, I had to reorder with a rush fee, and the whole detour cost about $1,200. One measurement would have avoided it.

Here's what I do now:

• Measure the clear opening between supports in both directions—always more than once.
• Confirm the bearing surface depth on each side. I want a minimum of 1 inch, but every installation is different, so I verify.
• Take photos of the opening and the surrounding support structure before placing the order.
• Note the direction of the supports. That tells me how the bearing bars should orient on the replacement tread.

One more thing: older structures aren't square. The opening might be a quarter-inch wider at the front than at the back. I use the smallest measurement in each direction and double-check if the difference is significant.

Step 2: Match the material to the environment, not the price column

McNichols carries stair treads and grating in a range of materials: painted steel, galvanized steel, aluminum, stainless, and fiberglass. The cheapest option is usually painted steel. It's also usually the wrong option if the installation is outdoors, in a washdown area, or anywhere with regular moisture.

Here's the rule I've landed on after years of orders:

• Painted or bare steel: interior, dry areas, normal foot traffic.
• Galvanized steel: exterior, unheated buildings, condensation-prone environments.
• Aluminum: wet areas, salt air, coastal environments, or when weight is a factor.
• Fiberglass: chemical exposure, corrosive environments, or work near electrical equipment where non-conductive material matters.

In Q2 2023, I ordered galvanized treads for a mezzanine in an unheated warehouse. Painted steel was about 18% cheaper at the time. The galvanized cost more upfront, but it saved me from explaining rust failure a couple of years down the road. After 5 years of managing procurement, I've come to believe that material selection is the biggest long-term cost driver in grating—bigger than the price difference between vendors.

Step 3: Confirm bar direction, spacing, and nosing details

Here's the thing most buyers overlook: stair treads aren't just rectangular pieces of grating. The bearing bars have a direction, a spacing, and a surface profile—and those details affect both performance and what it feels like to walk on them.

For stair treads specifically:

• Bearing bars should run from the front of the tread to the back, perpendicular to the nosing.
• Bar spacing affects both load capacity and foot comfort. The most common spacing I order is 1-3/16" on center, but always confirm against your project spec.
• Serrated (textured) bars are worth the upcharge in wet or oily environments. Smooth bars get slippery fast.
• The nosing style matters as well—diamond nosing is common for general industrial use, but your project may require something different.

I once received a batch of treads with the bearing bars running the wrong direction. They looked identical from above. But they flexed the wrong way under load, which is a safety issue, not just a quality issue. That order had to be completely re-fabricated, and the project was delayed by two weeks. Now I confirm bar direction on the order form every single time.

Step 4: Know the load requirements—and where your expertise ends

I'll be honest about the boundaries of what I can do. I can read a load table, match the specs of an existing tread, and follow an engineer's drawing. What I can't do is design a custom grating system for, say, a forklift aisle from scratch. That's not my job, and acting like it is would be a liability.

If you're replacing existing treads, match the original spec. If you have the drawing, even better. If you're building something new and there's any question about load capacity, get a qualified engineer to review the design before you order. McNichols provides the products and the published load data, but they're a fabricator and supplier. Final design responsibility sits with a licensed professional. Any vendor who claims otherwise is putting you at risk.

I've also learned to appreciate suppliers who tell you what they don't do. The vendor who says "this isn't our strength, here's who does it better" earns my trust for everything else. I'd rather work with a specialist who knows their limits than a generalist who overpromises.

Step 5: Compare total cost, not the listed price

McNichols is more transparent about pricing than most suppliers in this industry, which I appreciate. But the number on the product page is not the number that hits your budget. If you want a realistic comparison, you have to look at total cost of ownership.

Here's what my cost model includes:

• Material cost per square foot or per tread.
• Cutting fees for custom sizes. Cut-to-size panels and treads usually carry a service charge, and it's not always obvious on the product page.
• Freight. This is the biggest hidden cost. Grating is heavy, and shipping can add 15–25% to the order depending on distance, total weight, and whether you need a liftgate.
• Finishing. Hot-dip galvanizing, powder coating, or other finishes add cost on top of the base material.
• Lead time. A quote that's 10% cheaper but takes three weeks longer isn't a good deal if your project is due in two.

As of late 2024, I've seen multiple quotes where the lowest material price wasn't the lowest total landed cost once freight and finishing were added. During a 3-month vendor review for our annual grating order, I compared quotes from 6 suppliers in a simple spreadsheet. The vendor with the lowest base price ended up about 11% more expensive overall once freight minimums and cutting fees were included. When I switched our order to a different product configuration with the same supplier, we saved about $8,400 a year—roughly 17% of our grating budget. The spreadsheet catches what the product page doesn't show.

Step 6: Verify catalog numbers before you reorder

If you've ordered from McNichols before, you probably have a catalog number or order confirmation saved somewhere. Here's the trap: catalog numbers change. McNichols updates their product lines, and a number that worked last year might not map exactly to the same product today.

What I do now: before reordering McNichols stair treads or wire mesh, I pull up the current catalog on their site and confirm that the number matches the description, size, and material I expect. It takes two minutes and has prevented at least two wrong orders that I know of.

The side benefit is that I catch spec changes. A product I ordered two years ago might now come with a different standard bar spacing or a different coating. That kind of subtle change is easy to miss when you're reordering from memory, and it's the kind of thing you notice only after installation, when it's too late.

Common mistakes that still catch people

Before you place that order, a few reminders from someone who's been burned:

Don't measure once. Measure the opening at multiple points, in both directions, and write down the smallest value. Structures settle, frames shift, and "nominal" sizes are rarely the actual size.

Don't assume "wire mesh" is a single product. McNichols wire mesh covers welded wire, woven wire, square mesh, rectangular mesh, and a wide range of wire diameters and opening sizes. If you just write "wire mesh" on a requisition, you'll get something. Probably not what you wanted. Be specific: wire diameter, opening size, material, sheet size.

And don't assume McNichols sells everything. McNichols is a metal products company: stair treads, grating, wire mesh, perforated metal, expanded metal, and related items. They don't make tile edge trim—Schluter Systems is a completely different brand in the construction space. They don't sell glass cleaner. And if you're here because you searched for drum sets for beginners, this isn't that article. I honestly don't know why those search queries sometimes land together. My best guess is that adjacent categories get algorithmically mixed up. But knowing what your supplier doesn't do saves you time and frustration.

At the end of the day, buying stair treads and wire mesh comes down to the same few things: accurate measurements, the right material, correct bar orientation, load data you understand, and a total cost view that goes beyond the list price. It took me 6 years and hundreds of orders to develop this process. If this checklist saves you one reorder, it's done its job.