My daughter has just moved into a house that has a squeaky kitchen floor. There is literally a "crawl space" under the house making it very difficult to climb around. She has a linoleum covered floor. Being a complete novice, but still wanting to look like the hero to my little girl, how can I go about getting rid of these creaks? Thanks.
Say some more about the age of the house, the span length of the floor joists the cross section of the joists, and the material of the subfloor. This would not be the first house with joists not sized for the spans; or not sized for the loads; or structural panels that are too closely fitted; or older construction that has been damaged by moisture or insects in the crawl space. TB
Usually, a squeaky floor is caused by a loose nail (or maybe several) holding the flooring and subflooring to the joists.
The solution is to identify the squeaky areas and drive a screw through the floor, subfloor, and into the joist.
The problem is that if you have floorcovering already installed, you can't just go around driving screws through it or you'll ruin it.
This is my real problem. It already has nice floorcovering already installed. In my house that I have carpet in, whenever I hear a squeek I just drive a nail and it goes away. Might not be the correct way of handling it but it works.
The thing with my daughters house is we're not going to drive a nail through the linoleum.
I'm thinking that since the house is only 5 years old that the subflooring in the kitchen will be at least 3/4". I think I might just go underneath and drive a 1" nail un into the subfloor through the floor joist at an angle?
Kyle Boatright wrote:
That's a desparate fix, but it might work.
Personally, I'd pick an inconspicuous corner and drill a small hole in the floor and gauge the thickness of the flooring and subflooring at that point.
Then, I'd locate all the squeaks, figure out where they are, and locate them in the crawlspace.
After that, I'd make a reference marks on the joists (say 2" below the floor) and drill angled holes through the joists and into the floor and subfloor beginning at that reference point. If your reference mark is 2" below the floor and the floor and subfloor add up to 1.5" (hypothetically), I'd use 3.5" screws to hold everything together. With any angle at all, they won't penetrate into the linoleum.
A tedious job, but doable...
How about using construction adhesive at the top 2 edges of each joist. It is recommended for roofs to help hurricane proof the roof. I wonder if it would help on squeaks.
I think the screws would work *better*, but a tube of construction adhesive only costs $3.00, and requires a lot less work than the method I suggested. The original poster would only lose $3.00 and 30 extra minutes of work if the construction adhesive didn't work. If it did work, he'd save far more than 30 minutes.
OK. Thanks for the help everyone. I'm going to go with the construction adhesive first and follow up with the screws as a lst resort. I knew I'd get positive feedback here. Again, thanks.
Kyle Boatright wrote:
baby powder, shims, article at:
1) Who OWNS the house? If she's renting, you should leave it alone. 2) Floor squeaks are a pain in the ass. There is no thing that is guaranteed to work. 3) Don't count on the floor being more than 21/32" thick
Things that might help include blocking between joists, an extra support mid-jost supported by posts, glue injected between the joists and the subfloor, followed by weights in the kitchen, and screws. Nails probably won't help.
Suggest that her husband or boyfriend insert shims between the floor joists & the subfloor at the squeak locations.
If your daughter is in her own house, my guess is that it's time to stop doing the "crawlspace thing" & start giving advice. :)
If it's a rental forget it!
If construction adhesive doens't fix the problem it will be more difficult to add shims later.
cheers Bob
go under the hose with some wood tapered shims ,a hammer and some elmers glue. get someone to walk on the floor making it squeek,when you find it,tap in a shim between the plywood and the floor joist just till it stops squeeking.some glue on the shim may help. lucas
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