Can creaky floors be repaired to eliminate creaks?

2/7/2014 at 8:09:31 AM

Hey Andrew,

Yes you can fix it. I have found that sometimes when the carpenters are nailing the bottom plate of the wall to the floor they miss the floor joist and those nails tend to loosen and squeak after awhile. If you open the drywall at the bottom of the wall near the squeak pull the nails and replace them with screws. This should solve it. If it doesn't it could be the subfloor itself which may involve pulling the carpet and screwing down the subfloor better.

Cheers,

Gilbert Lutes

TOTAL HOME

2/7/2014 at 8:19:27 AM

Andrew,

Short answer yes.

Your carpet will have to be rolled back to get at the sub floor ( baseboard may be an issue). After that it's just a matter of screwing the sub floor down to the floor joist with 2 to 21/2" #8 screws, and re-installing the carpet to the edges.

Note: to long a screw can cause it own set of problems (hitting ducts, plumbing and wires).

Hope this helps.

John R. Miller

Superior Handyman

2/7/2014 at 9:16:10 AM

Two great ideas from the gentlemen above.

In my experience, there are different ways of fixing this problem.

The "screw-down" method seem to work the best, but I have also found, that sometimes the necessary blocking between joists is missing, so that may also be the problem.

This is a difficult situation to remedy, as you need to have access to the joists. Being on the second floor, your main floor ceilings are probably finished and there is no way of accessing the joists, unless you rip down the main floor ceiling.

One time, I actually had to install a second subfloor on top of the existing one. This was done by adding sheets of plywood, on top of the sub-floor, in the opposite direction. This, of course, creates other problems.

This goes to show, that its best to do a proper job, from the start.

The best thing, as always, is to start with the simplest fix first!

Roll back the carpet & screw the floor down.

Tom Roume

2/21/2014 at 6:54:52 PM

1st make sure there is "bridging" between joist in bsmt. Then if that is good remove carpet and re-screw floor down. That will work if not you are out of luck. Joist to narrow ie: 2x8 and/or house too old.