Creaking floor

stevenh78

Hi, I've just bought a new house but there's a few rooms where it's already started creaking when walking. The house is only 3 months old. In one of the rooms, the creaking sound is really bad and can be heard very clearly in the downstairs living room.
The creaking sound only occurs in one part of the rooms where there is a noggin supporting the long joists due to the long span of the downstairs dining/living room.
The joiner has already been in and he put loads of screws into the floor where the noggin is supposed to be but that's not solved the problem.
What else can I get the house builder to do? The joiner says that there's no more he can do and creaking in timber frame houses is only natural!?
Thanks

Steven

keystone

Chipboard floors probably - horrid! There's probably a whole pile of dust between the boards and the joists and in the T&G which adds seriously to the creaking. Short of persuading (ahem) the developer to lift it, support where required, clean it all up and relay it again theres not much more that can be done other than that which the chippy has already done. Having said that he's right you will get creaking on timber floors particularly as the whole structure prolly hasn't properly settled yet.

Cheers

Savvy_Spender_South

In addition, good thick carpet and underlay disperses foot weight over a slightly larger area which can help with creaking on older Victorian timber floors. This may be a solution for you if it persists beyond settling.

stevenh78

I will pay a visit to the site manager today, but no doubt he'll tell me a load of crap again... I'm already using pretty much the thickest underlay and carpet I could find, if i didn't have that the sound would be even worse!

jcb208

Insist on it being fixed, squeaking floors is classed as a fault but you may need to wait for the 6 month snag incase of any further movement.

stevenh78

Well I met with the site manager today and he just kept insisting that it's normal as the timber dries out which can take up to 2 years and that's why they provide a 2 year guarantee even though I had lived in my old house for almost 10 years before the first creaking appeared! Well he suggested I raise it with customer service again and see what else the joiner can do.
After doing a bit of reading online about similar problems I think it's probably the noggin isn't strong enough and would probably require additional bracing though would be a more difficult job as they'd have to lift part of the flooring...

dennycluckie

:cool:hi mate I'm a joiner and noisy floors are one of my pet hates your floor was prob put down with a nail gun (passlode)and the nails only have serrations so far up get you builder to screw the floor down with screws that have threads all the way up the shank your squeak is prob from the timber rubbing the nail also ask if the boards were glued(not always common practise) but it certainly makes a huge diff best of luck

stevenh78

Thanks dennycluckie, the joiner already came and said the squeak was coming from where the noggins were so he screwed a few dozen long screws in to the noggins but he didn't actually screw any of the boards to the joists though i don't think... i'm still getting creaking at the same place, along where the noggin is so that's why I'm suspecting it might need additional bracing... either that or they botched up joining the noggins to the joists...
Funny thing is that the creaking only started occuring straight after the carpet fitters fitted the carpets which makes me think that when they were using the knee kickers to stretch the carpets the impacts may have loosened something, though it's not that much worse than a big kid jumping up and down upstairs though...