Creaking floors - replace chipboard with floorboards?

Jeepers_Creepers

It might present 'problems' - but only a bit of extra work. There is nothing insurmountable here - if a floor needs refitting, it needs refitting.

But, it might not need refitting...

There seems to be two issues here (you really picked a good housebuilder :-)  ); one is a creaky floor, and the other is creaky pipes. Almost certainly completely different causes. The pipe creaks need IDing and sorting. If you are lucky, it might just be where they come up through the holes in the floor and you might be able to lube them to sort it. If it's due to a pipe running too tightly against a joist or clip, however, screwing down your floorboards ain't going to fix it.

The other issue is the creaking floorboards. Creaking occurs where two surfaces meet, so two obvious locations: the floorboard-to-joist top, and the floorboard-to-floorboard joints. For the former, sending in 50mm or 65mm screws (as long as you know there are no pipes or cable under there) every 6" spacing should sort it. For the latter, you need to either lift the boards, glue the T&Gs and refit them, or you might - possibly - get away with it by scraping out the joint grooves, hoovering them clean and then brushing in a slightly watered (15%) coat of PVA. Brush across - to force it in - and then along - to force it further. Keep piling up the PVA - leave a raised 'pool' along the joint so's it keep being drawn in, ideally by capillary action, until no more does. Then brush flat any remaining on the surface.

That landing board looks as tho' it's been cut along at least one side, so doesn't even have the benefit of T&G any more... If so, that needs gluing & screwing badly.

Don't expect to find the miscreant boards by their springiness - 'creaks' are caused where there's even tiny movements between very tight contact. A big gap is unlikely to creak - the good-looking tight one is.

Doozergirl

cpbackhouse said:

I recently replaced the flooring on our landing and bedroom. I think a central heating installation somewhere in the houses past had left a jigsaw of chipboard not properly supported.
I cut the chipboard away as close to the walls as I could using a small circular saw set to the depth of the wood. Anywhere there was wood joining I added extra noggins to support the joint. I replaced the whole floor with large sheets of plywood laid straight on the the joists as suggested by Doozergirl. I probably used too many screws (and will regret it if I ever come to take it up again) but figured while I knew where I could screw to support it, it made sense.
It's made a massive difference as we can now walk across our floor in silence without waking up the whole neighbourhood!
One extra thing I did do was make sure to mark the new flooring with where all the pipes and cables were running if I ever needed it in the future.

Bravo!  I love your attention to detail 🙌

NibblyPig

cpbackhouse said:

I recently replaced the flooring on our landing and bedroom. I think a central heating installation somewhere in the houses past had left a jigsaw of chipboard not properly supported.
I cut the chipboard away as close to the walls as I could using a small circular saw set to the depth of the wood. Anywhere there was wood joining I added extra noggins to support the joint. I replaced the whole floor with large sheets of plywood laid straight on the the joists as suggested by Doozergirl. I probably used too many screws (and will regret it if I ever come to take it up again) but figured while I knew where I could screw to support it, it made sense.
It's made a massive difference as we can now walk across our floor in silence without waking up the whole neighbourhood!
One extra thing I did do was make sure to mark the new flooring with where all the pipes and cables were running if I ever needed it in the future.

Thanks mate, did you have any problems with contraction/expansion or have to retighten screws or anything?
The quote for getting someone out to sort it out is like £2500 but it's paying for a person's time not for a job because they're basically saying it's up to me what I want as they can't promise any magical fixes as they don't know what they'll find etc.

Since I want karndean I am tempted to do as you say, just buy plywood and put it down but I am worried about expansion/contraction and if it will even solve the problem. I'll need to instruct them to some degree about exactly what I want them to do and I don't like this kind of responsibility because I am not a very practical person when it comes to anything construction related!

cpbackhouse

We did this about a year ago and haven't had any issues yet. It was relatively easy to do myself, the biggest hassle was getting the sheets of plywood up our stairs!

NibblyPig

I'm still in turmoil about this and I don't know what to do. Here's some photos of the worst bit. I also made a video! Creeeeeeeeeak. https://youtu.be/qhSp_0u98W0

I read so much conflicting stuff. Perhaps they can just drive a ton of screws in? Or will they hit pipes and cables... yikes.

I read that it might not fix it, or it might be just a temporary fix and down the line it'll start again...

So I could replace it with plywood, but I suppose it would cost a lot for labour. But then the karndean installer would put plywood down anyway...?

The source of my dilemma is that I just wanted to get the builder in and say 'it creaks' and do a sad face, and for them to tell me 'you need X Y Z that will cost £££' and quote me for that rather than the fact I got a sort of vague quote of getting a carpenter in to see what they can do...

I miss my victorian floorboards

arly c

fenwick458

if it's only the landing it the main affected area, surely you can just get chippie in to remove the flooring by cutting 1/2 of the T&G's, and install a load of 3x2 CLS supports along the joints and then refit the boards with D4 glue on the remaining 1/2 of the joints and then fit tons of 70m screws (obviously they should note pipes and cables once the floor is up)

NibblyPig

It's the landing and both of the bedrooms, plus the stairs... the landing is the worst, one of the bedrooms is about 60% as bad as the landing, and the other bedroom is like 20% as bad...

NibblyPig

If anyone wanted a follow up to this I had a guy come in and he lifted, inspected, glued & screwed these down and possibly did some other bits and now they're 98% less creaky. Fixed my squeaky stairs as well. Cost me a bit, but it's done now. Will see how it is after new flooring is put in.

Other rooms still have some movement walking on them, but not in a squeaky way, maybe that's just the nature of them. Just need people to stop STOMPING EVERYWHERE. I walk with the grace of a cat but other people seem unaware of their clomp clomp clomp.

oniongirl

NibblyPig said:

Just need people to stop STOMPING EVERYWHERE. I walk with the grace of a cat but other people seem unaware of their clomp clomp clomp.

My husband has flat feet and likes to go upstairs and stomp about when he gets a phonecall. I honestly think I might murder him for it one day. That, or not using door handles properly.

Glad your creaking is mostly solved. Maybe I will get someone to look at our stairs...

tony3619

NibblyPig said:

If anyone wanted a follow up to this I had a guy come in and he lifted, inspected, glued & screwed these down and possibly did some other bits and now they're 98% less creaky. Fixed my squeaky stairs as well. Cost me a bit, but it's done now. Will see how it is after new flooring is put in.

Other rooms still have some movement walking on them, but not in a squeaky way, maybe that's just the nature of them. Just need people to stop STOMPING EVERYWHERE. I walk with the grace of a cat but other people seem unaware of their clomp clomp clomp.

How did the guy remove the floorboards? They look like they are nailed down and would be a massive pain to uplift. I have a new build which also suffers creaky floors (not nearly as bad yet) so this is worth knowing.