Creaking floorboards under new carpet: what to do?

victor2

I once tapped down a nail that was a bit proud in a floorboard when the carpet was up. The subsequent hissing made me realise the nail had been sitting on top of a central heating pipe. Cost me the price of an out-of-hours emergency plumber!
Also be wary of other pipes - copper pipes are commonly used for the gas supply. You would like to think they run below nail/screw reach, but the consequences of puncturing one of those and not realising could be more severe.
Replacing a nail with a shorter screw should be pretty safe though.

Getting back to the original question though. Carpet is pretty easy to pull up, but you'll need something like a knee kicker to get it back in place, unless it was glued down.

shaun_from_Africa

tonyh66 wrote: »

try reading the last sentence of my post smarta**e from africa.

Unless the OP lifts the floorboards to inspect first, there is no way to be absolutely certain that there are no pipes or cables that may be damaged by screwing down any loose floorboards and this is why I consider your post to be poor advice.

Gastines3

With the use of copper pipes in concrete/screed floors,we used to think that nailing Gripper down with it's short steel pins;Grippercrete; you would be OK as pipes were supposed to be well under pin lenght.Wrong!! Had quite a few exciting times that way. When starting to fit out a new build,owner advised me no pipes around perimeter of room! He had a shock when fixing a mirror on the wall and water started pouring out,microbore in stud wall!!. Worst headache for me,Fitting a decorative lino tile floor on ply in an upstairs Dentist Surgery,Microbore water supply to Dentist chair in centre of room run in notches in top of joists.Managed to hit it 4 times without realising it. After weekend the Dentist returned to find the Lounge underneath his surgery had a nice wavy,expanding and very wet wooden strip floor!! One day I'll write them in a book. Advice to original poster.Check First.

googler

tonyh66 wrote: »

you need to lift the carpets find where the nails are in the floor (this is where the boards are nailed to the joists), drill a hole through the board (but not into the joist) in line with the nails, then use a screw which fits the hole easily. You then fasten the board to the joist with the screw. Creaking is normally caused by the board being loose on the nails.

We've got a mid-1990s house with chipboard 'floorboards', and that's pretty much what I did before we got a room recarpeted. I found every nail, drilled and drove two screws next to each one, one each side, spent ages doing it, and the boards still creak.

Conclusion; you HAVE TO remove the nails. Unfortunately, they're likely to be buried/punched below the surface of the board, so this will be very difficult.

Sicard

I once used thick glue on one of the boards on the stairs which worked.

phil24_7

googler wrote: »

We've got a mid-1990s house with chipboard 'floorboards', and that's pretty much what I did before we got a room recarpeted. I found every nail, drilled and drove two screws next to each one, one each side, spent ages doing it, and the boards still creak.

Conclusion; you HAVE TO remove the nails. Unfortunately, they're likely to be buried/punched below the surface of the board, so this will be very difficult.

Interesting!

I renovated 2 of my bedrooms and lifted most of the boards in both rooms for electrics and plumbing. When refitting I used brand new floor brads, ever so slightly larger than the originals. My floorboards do not creak at all and haven't for the last 4 years.

Guess I just got lucky with the several hundred brads I installed!

googler

phil24_7 wrote: »

When refitting I used brand new floor brads, ever so slightly larger than the originals. My floorboards do not creak at all and haven't for the last 4 years.

Guess I just got lucky with the several hundred brads I installed!

So you did what I suggested (removed the original nails) ...

phil24_7

You also mentioned screwing the boards down. This is not necessary.

If you have screwed it down and it is still creaking then there was a problem with how you did it. A correctly sized screw should easily pull a floor board down and hold it tight regardless of whether the original nail was removed or not.

A screw is a better fixing, under many circumstance, than a nail but they are generally more destructive so unscrewing and re-fixing can cause damage to the wood, especially near the end of a board.

You can also usually stop creaking boards by using a punch on the end of the brads. Driving it in just a couple more mm will effectively fix the board due to the shape of the brads.