Squeaking wooden floor

Pingu1

A couple of my wooden floor boards are squeaking when I walk on them. I think there is slight movement but can't be sure. I'm in a ground floor flat with no carpet. Will the floor collapse?

PixelPound

No. Most likely fixing nails have loosened, the wood warped or swollen. Is the squeak too annoying or just the underlying concern. 

CliveOfIndia

It's not uncommon for floor boards to squeak.  The usual culprit is the nails have loosened slightly, allowing the boards to move ever so slightly.  It's a simple fix, usually - use a few screws (rather than nails) to tighten the floor boards back down.

Just take care not to screw into any central heating pipes or electrical cables that might be running underneath the board - if you use the existing nails as a guide and put in some screws right next to them you should be OK.

But if the squeaking is not too bad, try sprinkling some ordinary talcum powder between the boards.  Sounds daft, I know, but it acts as a lubricant and stops the boards squeaking as they rub against each other.

stuart45

Google Nightingale floors. The Samurai use them to warn of a Ninja attack.

pieroabcd

CliveOfIndia said:

It's not uncommon for floor boards to squeak.  The usual culprit is the nails have loosened slightly, allowing the boards to move ever so slightly.  It's a simple fix, usually - use a few screws (rather than nails) to tighten the floor boards back down.

Just take care not to screw into any central heating pipes or electrical cables that might be running underneath the board - if you use the existing nails as a guide and put in some screws right next to them you should be OK.

But if the squeaking is not too bad, try sprinkling some ordinary talcum powder between the boards.  Sounds daft, I know, but it acts as a lubricant and stops the boards squeaking as they rub against each other.

In my case the talcum powder didn't make any difference.
In my house the squeaking comes from the (1 year old) hardwood floor coverings that I installed myself, after levelling the subfloor, probably due to the less than stellar interconnection along the short side. Not exactly professionally installed, so I can't complain :-) , but I definitely used a lot of talcum powder to no avail.

OP if you feel confident it's better to remove that board completely to check the status below (making sure that there are no wires and/or pipes). You can't imagine what insane things people are willing to do to save 5 minutes of work.

Pingu1

I've had another look today and some appear to be moving when I stand on them. I'm worried the entire floor will need re-doing. Its the floor itself that is moving.

mr_vampy

Looks like you have a laminate floor.  Have you checked around the perimeter of the room to see if there is a sufficient expansion gap, normally about 10mm.

AlexMac

Yeah; as vampy says, they aren’t “floorboards” (so ignore the stuff about screws, nails, etc) but they look like laminate; loose-laid boards with a plastic finish which click together. They are ideally supposed to be laid on a thin spongy underfelty membrane, over a sub-floor which has been levelled off. 

So, while significant movement COULD imply less than competent fitting (failure to use levelling compound on a bumpy concrete or solid subfloor, loose boards on a traditional timber sub floor, omitting to cover those with a layer of thin hardboard, or the absolute worst case, rotten or insecure joists so a whole suspended wood floor below the laminate is bouncing…) it’s probably far more trivial? 

We’ve got well fitted “engineered wood “ flooring ( a grade up from laminate) on a properly levelled solid subfloor with  decent foam underlay. In the recent mini heatwave it creaked a bit due to it warming up and expanding, even though there is a decent “expansion gap” round the edges. 

So maybe just wait a couple of weeks before you start ripping it up?