Is this something I should worry about? When the nights are cold, the hard wood floor, especially on the second floor, start to POP like a shot gun. Maybe 5 pops during the course of the night. I've had the floors installed since 2009, no noise since then, just this year. Is there something I can do to stop it?
Hi, Humidity problem? (too dry in the house or too humid) Second floor is drier than main floor usually.
Put out a pan or two of water, maybe bump the heat too. That may help...what you hear is the wood shrinking and something is trying to overcome that...whenthe wood wins, POP.
hardwood floor, especially on the second floor, start to POP like a shot gu n. Maybe 5 pops during the course of the night. I've had the floors insta lled since 2009, no noise since then, just this year. Is there something I can do to stop it?
That's a possibile factor. If he doesn't have a humidifier, in winter it's going to dry out, which isn't going to help.
Thanks, everyone. I was starting to worry that the house was falling in on me. I'll just ignore it.
The workers who did your floor may have accidentally enclosed cicada pupae in your floor, and now they have matured enough to want out.
Specifically, I would suspect the "five-year gunslinger cicada". It has some unusual organ on its side which not only sounds like a gun, and looks like a gun, it shoots like a gun, and is used by them to kill other cicadas that are looking to mate. They have even been known to shoot a male in the process of mating, and then take up where the now-dead cicada left off. The female seems not to notice the difference. If you could get video of this, I know you could sell it, but you'd need to pry up a lot of the boards, use ultra-violet light and ultra-violet film. And find out the proper way to open the floor, because if you do it wrong, they'll hide for weeks.
Hmm. They've been trying to get pictures of this since long before film was less popular, so if you only use digital, you'll need a camera that is ultra-violet responsive (UVR) . (If you use plain old white light, the cicadas will freeze and appear to be wood shavings. )
It's been said that the female cicadas poison the other females in order to have the choice of males, but this may be an insect legend.
That's all I remember, but I see that if you google gunslinger cicada there is plenty of info, including on movie-making. That's what you should do first.
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