Squeaky Floors

[Tom Bender]

My best guess is that the glue in my plywood subfloor is just getting old and giving up it's grip. As the plies move underfoot it squeaks against the nails thru it.

My house was built in 1986. It is a ranch with full basement, no ceiling in the basement. All dry and no signs of anything bad. No changes to use or humidity. The floors are 2 x 10 joists with 1" plywood subfloor. For about 20 years no squeaks, but since then the squeaks have started everywhere, except where there is 3/4" hardwood. The hardwood runs across the joists so it carries the load and distributes it. When we replaced the vinyl in the kitchen last year we added fasteners in the squeaky spots and it was quiet for a while, but then other spots spoke up. Grrr.

The bathroom has now started and I am planning to replace the vinyl there. Not wanting to try to replace the 5' x 5' subfloor I'm thinking to add 1/2"
Baltic Birch, after adding many fasteners to the subfloor. Might this provide enough stiffness to quiet the problem?

[Jerome Stanek]

Use screws not nails I had the floor squeak after about 20 years and I ended up screwing the sub floor down now it hasn't squeaked in almost 30 years.

[Dave Zellers]

Ditto on the screws. Screw off the entire bathroom floor into the joists. After that you can add the 1/2" ply but I think BB is not needed- a good quality underlayment plywood would be fine. However, the 5x5 size of your bathroom matches the size of a BB sheet.

Is your subfloor 1" because it is 2 layers of 1/2" ply? Or is it actually 1" plywood which seems unusual.

[Tom Bender]

Screws it will be! And if I don't need 1/2" I'll use 1/4" BB which is a full 1/4" That will keep the transition to a minimum.

Yes it was built with 1" plywood. Two layers of 1/2" would have been better as I have a ridge in one place under the hardwood.

[Tom M King]

Yes, the problem is nails. The plywood, or even hardwood flooring after some age, can develop a little gap under it, and the squeaking is, more times than not, the stuff rubbing against the fixed in place nail, as it flexes up, and down over the little bit of clearance under it. If you go back and put screws in it, it can cure it, or at least make it a lot better.

I've run screws up from underneath in old Oak flooring over diagonal boards for subflooring. There was one place near a stair landing that we never could get all of the squeaking out of, but the rest of the floor is now quiet. I think the problem with the bottom of the stairs had something to do with a Newel post, but it was flipper house, and I got tired of fooling with it.

[Myk Rian]

Before laying carpet in 3 bedrooms I used 2.5" GRK screws every 12 inches to make the floors solid. Only room left to do is the living room and a hallway.

[Stan Calow]

I used 1/4" luan underlayment when I replaced some flooring in the bathroom. That was enough. But since basement is not finished, there are the Squeaky Floor repair kits if you can find the squeaky spots, where you are not replacing the flooring. The screw to the joists and then the underlayment