Ideas on Fixing Creaky Floor Board

Furton

Furton

Furton

Soldato
Joined
9 Aug 2003
Posts
2,715
Location
Liverpool
I'm the process of redecorating a room in my 1980's house. Whilst doing this, I decided to fit acoustic insulation between the joists and tackle a creaky floor board that's bugged me since we moved in. After lifting the board, the problem seems to be due to cowboy heating engineers notching out and fitting pipework where the edge of the board is. Re-routing these pipes probably isn't feasible due to costs, but is there anything I could do to provide more support on the edge of the board? Would placing packers or strips of insulation on top of the pipework be suitable?

 
I am not an expert, but here are my thoughts. Don't place stuff on top of the pipes, it's not a good idea. If you can find pieces of flat and stiff material, some sort of metal or composite perhaps, then you could bridge over the pipes in line with the beams, and that would restore support to the edge of the board above. Please note I do not know whether there are any safety implications of putting metal above pipes, so check this out first.
 
Don't try and use insulation onto the pipes as a means of supporting the board. It won't solve it. As others have said reposition the boards to bridge the pipes.

How deep is the notch vs the joist depth and where is it along the span of the timber? I do hope they've not notched it out at midspan or anything daft like that.
 
Last edited:
Yeah remove all the board to the left, or worst case, cut that board down, so the one you have up now can go over the pipes and onto joists the other side. The replace the trimmed out section to the right of the board you have up now, if that makes sense.

If you are forced to remove say only a 30cm bit (looks liek you may hit a wall) then you can create a far more reinforced area for this small offcut when replaced to the right of this area in your photo, that way it shouldnt squeak
 
dLockers said:
What size screws do you recommend?
Click to expand...
Bigger the better?
iu
 
dLockers said:
What size screws do you recommend?
Click to expand...

Use spax wirox 60mm flooring screws, should be pinned every joist at 300mm centres (check you can verify cables /pipes under the floor before doing this!)

Its good practice to also glue the floor with caberdek d5 glue to the joists. You're also meant to glue the tongues. You can see it bleeding out the tongues in my photo below but it comes off easy with a chisel.

I say "meant to" as to be fair i have a 10 year old chipboard floor which I don't believe is glued but I'm not going to rip it up in a room which has been decorated. I've got an example I did in my bathroom below.


As others have said you need to cut your flooring /move it "left" so you have more bearing for that section of flooring on the joist. Whilst it's up I'd mark out/write down the services underneath with permanent marker. (so you don't drill it and for future).

You can see in my photo I've added noggins to increase bearing /joists for my floor below.

www.toolstation.com

SPAX Wirox T-STAR Plus Flooring Screw

Speed up your fastening jobs with these SPAX flooring screws. The screw head is specially designed for use with T-STAR Plus bits for a more secure fit - this means quicker, firmer and more efficient driving with no annoying bit slips.Flush screw insertion is easy with a countersunk head, and...
www.toolstation.com www.toolstation.com


aAuqmAu.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Buffman said:
Use spax wirox 60mm flooring screws, should be pinned every joist at 300mm centres (check you can verify cables /pipes under the floor before doing this!)

Its good practice to also glue the floor with caberdek d5 glue to the joists. You're also meant to glue the tongues. You can see it bleeding out the tongues in my photo below but it comes off easy with a chisel.

I say "meant to" as to be fair i have a 10 year old chipboard floor which I don't believe is glued but I'm not going to rip it up in a room which has been decorated. I've got an example I did in my bathroom below.


As others have said you need to cut your flooring /move it "left" so you have more bearing for that section of flooring on the joist. Whilst it's up I'd mark out/write down the services underneath with permanent marker. (so you don't drill it and for future).

You can see in my photo I've added noggins to increase bearing /joists for my floor below.

www.toolstation.com

SPAX Wirox T-STAR Plus Flooring Screw

Speed up your fastening jobs with these SPAX flooring screws. The screw head is specially designed for use with T-STAR Plus bits for a more secure fit - this means quicker, firmer and more efficient driving with no annoying bit slips.Flush screw insertion is easy with a countersunk head, and...
www.toolstation.com www.toolstation.com


aAuqmAu.jpeg
Click to expand...
Super thanks. I've ordered the SPAX ones you linked.

Regarding the gap around the board, do you leave anything significant or butt right up? I heard it can transfer noise to the walls and a gap should be left.

And then what do you do with that gap, lol? Foam?
 
dLockers said:
Super thanks. I've ordered the SPAX ones you linked.

Regarding the gap around the board, do you leave anything significant or butt right up? I heard it can transfer noise to the walls and a gap should be left.

And then what do you do with that gap, lol? Foam?
Click to expand...
10mm gap on each edge I recall

A 1930s home doesn't need (or want) to be hermetically sealed.
 
Last edited:
Buffman said:
10mm gap on each edge I recall

A 1930s home doesn't need (or want) to be hermetically sealed.
Click to expand...
For sure, there is great ventilation under the floor via very clear airbricks and the solider courses have all had their vent gaps cleared out. But draughts around the skirting is a killer and can't be achieving much?

I mean ultimately the hardwood floor that goes over the top will abut the wall and then skirting will sit on top to "seal" it anyway.
 
It looks like the pipes were laid before the flooring, the nail on one of the clips is covered by the adjacent board so perhaps not entirely the fault of the plumber!
 
For edge gaps a few mm is usually enough as timber floors don't really expand that much internally and you will have a gap both sides so say 3mm each end should be more than enough. If you have a larger gap you can fill it with self-expanding foam strip (not squirty foam). It's like a door seal kind of thing, comes in a roll. You peel off the backing, push it in the gap and it self-swells to seal it. You can also use it below skirtings and plasterboard lining where you want to float them off the floor.
 
Possibly a tangent: how much do people use chipboard in flooring? I was always taught ply or OSB, nothing else. We have chipboard in our utility that the last owner put in. It's gone mushy and things are starting to droop. The washing machine has punched a hole through it and I've had to lay a sheet of ply to bridge it. Because they built the studwork off it we're going to have to get our downstairs bathroom demolished to get the flooring replaced. I would not recommend chipboard to anyone, irrespective of position in the house. The material properties you get for ply and OSB seem to be superior too when I've looked into it.
 
Last edited:
ik9000 said:
Possibly a tangent: how much do people use chipboard in flooring? I was always taught ply or OSB, nothing else. We have chipboard in our utility that the last owner put in. It's gone mushy and things are starting to droop. The washing machine has punched a hole through it and I've had to lay a sheet of ply to bridge it. Because they built the studwork off it we're going to have to get our downstairs bathroom demolished to get the flooring replaced. I would not recommend chipboard to anyone, irrespective of position in the house. The material properties you get for ply and OSB seem to be superior too when I've looked into it.
Click to expand...
Chipboard is used everywhere for flooring now. It only goes mushy if you have an issue with water.
 
ik9000 said:
Possibly a tangent: how much do people use chipboard in flooring? I was always taught ply or OSB, nothing else. We have chipboard in our utility that the last owner put in. It's gone mushy and things are starting to droop. The washing machine has punched a hole through it and I've had to lay a sheet of ply to bridge it. Because they built the studwork off it we're going to have to get our downstairs bathroom demolished to get the flooring replaced. I would not recommend chipboard to anyone, irrespective of position in the house. The material properties you get for ply and OSB seem to be superior too when I've looked into it.
Click to expand...
Was it green p5 grade moisture "resistant" chipboard.

I don't believe it's 100% resistant but is better with water than lower grades
 
Tbf my friends have a newish build with 22mm chipboard and the washing machine has leaked numerous times - the water runs down the skirting and had saturated the chipboard. A pin ***** leak I fixed for him meant taking up the top layer of floor, and the next time the washer leaked, it did just disintegrate.

Not sure what the moral of the story is but any chipboard that is saturated is highly likely to disintegrate, P5 or not IMO.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom