Replace subfloor on old house to eliminate noise/squeaking?
6/3/2016 at 2:29:53 PM
We recently bought a 100+ year old house in Toronto and completely gutted/redid the basement apartment [fully permitted!]. Now that it's all done and we're about to move our first tenant in, we realized how loud the main floor sounds from the basement. The floor is hardwood and very squeaky, and there is a lot of shaking and loud footstep noise.
We don't want to a bandaid fix and we want the downstairs tenant to be comfortable. Would it be recommended to redo the subfloor, which I believe is very old, and add soundproofing like QuietDown?
The space is only about 450sq feet. The kitchen is currently tiled but is decent for sound transmission as it's about 1" higher (probably layers of vinyl and tile over the years). Also we had an engineer in for basement and the joists (true 2x8s, 16"OC) were given the thumbs up.
6/3/2016 at 10:46:14 PM
I agree that re securing the subfloor is the way to go. My wife and I have a century home and the floors on the upper story were very bad.
We put down 1/2" subfloor with glue and screws and nailed in new engineered hardwoods and good as new.
Insulating the ceiling cavity below for sound is not a bad idea. Not sure of the "Quiet Down" product as I use Roxul Safe & Sound batts for ceilings.
Thanks,
Matt of All Trades
6/4/2016 at 9:04:15 AM
I believe you have answered your own question, and congratulations on completing your project. It is always exciting to hear from home owners that are so well informed. Goods luck with the new floor.
Walter
6/5/2016 at 11:07:55 AM
Hi Jonathan,
The original sub floor is moving up and down on is original nails which causes squeaking.
Noise transfer to the basement can be reduced as follows.
- Remove existing flooring (hard wood)
- When the sub floor is exposed , screw the old floor to the joist every 12
- Install new cork or equal and approved sub flooring over area.
- Install new carpet/hardwood or tile flooring.
Regards,
KCMC
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