I am working on a home that was built in the 1950’s. Most of the hardware floors in the home are making noise walking on them. I have used 2×8’s to sister the floor joists used the same 2×8’s directly agaist the floor and doing this with a jack. I am stil getting the noises. I know there was a product outthere that took care of this problem…any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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The problem is likely the floor boards rising and falling against the joists. The squeek is mostly the nails going in and out.
Generally it's the subfloor that isn't sufficiently fastened.
You can try to toe-screw the floor down from below, while someone is above, standing on the spot you're working on. (They'll obviously appreciate it if the length of the screw is less than the thickness, on an angle, of the corner of joist, subfloor, flooring, and their shoe sole.)
first, you have to identify where the noise is originating.
Wood/wood from frame and subfloor
nail/wood as mentioned above
wood/wood from individual pieces of the hardwood floor
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I hope that you used construction adhesive when you sistered in the new joists or you may have added to the problem...
Here's something that will help, particularly because it sounds like you have access to the joists under the floor. I have never heard of anyone else doing this, but a couple of weeks ago I did this to a 1940 house. Get the quart tubes of PL polyurethane adhesive and apply it to the top edges of each joist where they contact the subfloor. Hit all nails that penetrate through the subfloor as well. If there is cross bracing then hammer it loose, apply PL polyurethane adhesive to the gaps and hammer them back in place. The idea is to hit every joint that is accessible. You may have to spread the adhesive with your gloved fingers, as you would caulk.
Be sure to wear gloves and goggles. You don't want it in your eyes and when you hit an air bubble in the caulk tube it will splatter.
Anyway, this fixed almost all of the creaks in the wood floor -- these were subfloor creaks. Obviously this won't fix the creaking that sometimes occurs between adjacent floorboards, but there are other fixes for these.
It is best to do this in winter when the boards are dry, as they will expand with the humidity of summer. If you do this in summer the boards are more likely to split in the winter when they contract.
Billy
Edited 1/12/2005 11:42 am ET by Billy
"Most of the hardware floors in the home are making noise walking on them."
You try oilin` them?
Sorry...couldn`t resist!
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
that's grease...
oil desen't get it..
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