Creaky Chipboard Landing Floor

[Rob]

Soon we will have to replace our stair carpet again, now our last doggie has sadly departed us, and therefore I have an opportunity to resolve the creaky floor, which creaks like a motherlover.

About 5 years ago when we moved in I had all the carpets replaced and back then I used 100's of chipboard screws to try and resolve the problem throughout the upstairs rooms but they had no effect. We tried the "talc in the joints" method too.

 

Any other ideas this time around?

I have heard that sheradized ring shank nails will prevent movement. All the pipe work is roughly shown by pencil marks so that should be safe.

[Chris Wilson]

The commonest cause of creaking is fretting of the chipboard on the nails themselves. If you can bear the time and effort pull all the nails and re-secure with exterior grade decking screws. There are some superb ones we use for fencing that have a square hole in the head, and come with a really high quality square ended drill driven driver in a pack of 250 screws. They are FAR less likely to slip and round out than Phillips or similar headed ones. The boards do not sit flat on all the joists, so if you leave some nails in sod's law states they will be where the board flexes, and creaks up and down the nail. The boards are powerful enough in warp to pull even aggressively ringed annular ring nails loose.

[merckx]

I have heard that sheradized ring shank nails will prevent movement.

Personally I wouldn't use these in a floor as they're too permanent, good for fences though.

[mkirby]

alot of the problem is where they join and over time they expand and rub together causing them to creak, you can remove the nails as chris says and replace them with screws to improve things but you will never get rid of it our old barrett house was terrible.

[JamieP]

This is something we are forever putting right for customers, we just pull the floor up then glue and screw it to the joist, never a creek or squeek to be heard again.

[mkirby]

This is something we are forever putting right for customers, we just pull the floor up then glue and screw it to the joist, never a creek or squeek to be heard again.

 

problem i had with my old barrett house is the boards were put down before the partitions walls so you couldnt take them up

[JamieP]

problem i had with my old barrett house is the boards were put down before the partitions walls so you couldnt take them up

 

Just cut round em, no biggie:)

[Rob]

This is something we are forever putting right for customers, we just pull the floor up then glue and screw it to the joist, never a creek or squeek to be heard again.

 

I fear this may be the only failsafe option.

[Ian R]

problem i had with my old barrett house is the boards were put down before the partitions walls so you couldnt take them up

 

I would think that the fact that Barrett built it would be a bigger problem

[Branners]

I once heard you can sprinkely talcum powder under the carpet and it keeps things quiet. It didnt work for me but then I think my 1930s floorboards have a life of their own and would squeek if a mouse ran over them.

[Guest argy911]

use bread sticks:p