Squeaky Floor: Here’s A Great Fix

Squeaky floors are great if you want to catch a snoop in your house, but they’re terrible for pretty much every other reason. Thankfully, there is a quick fix for insufferable floorboard sounds—in fact, there are a few solutions. The DIY experts at Stack Exchange are here to help.

I have a home built in the 1940’s. The main floor creaks a lot and more squeaking and creaks seem to spring up in new places all the time. Is there an easy way to stop the squeaking and creaking? I don’t necessarily need to prevent future annoyances, but I would like to stop the loudest creaking now.

shirlock homes Answers:

The main cause of wood floors squeaking is wood shrinkage around the nails. If you can localize the areas that are the worst, a common way to minimize squeaks is to drive screws up from the bottom through the subfloor into the hardwood. Be absolutely sure to use screws that will are long enough to grab the hardwood, but short enough not to stick through.

If you do not have hardwood floors then you’ll have to decide among a few different techniques appropriate for specific floor coverings, ie. carpet, tile, vinyl, etc. With carpet, for instance, there are special breakaway screws (such as these made by McFeely’s) that can be installed from above. With tile or vinyl, the screw from under method is often the way to go.

Read the entire article: http://lifehacker.com/5991987/whats-the-best-way-to-fix-a-squeaky-floor