How to eliminate a floor creak with your own hands: Lifehacks + Video

How easy and simple to eliminate the creak of the floor in the apartment and house with your own hands. Probably, most of the owners of apartments or houses with laid wooden floors, faced the problem, which was the creak of the floorboards. This phenomenon is associated with various reasons, while it manifests itself in both old and new buildings. It would seem a trifle, but still annoying. For people who have a sensitive psyche, the creak can even cause neurosis.

To eliminate the creak of the floor in the apartment, and not at the same time not pay the master, we suggest considering the methods described in this article.

General information

Possible causes of squeaks

Before you start repairing a wooden floor, you should determine what is the reason the appearance of such an unpleasant sound. And most often it occurs due to the friction of structural parts against each other, crawled out or lost the strength of the fastening in the nail log.

There are other reasons:

• Loose fasteners. Yes, this is the case when the board is fixed on the logs with nails, because after a while the holes in the wood begin to expand around them.

  This can be facilitated by the impact of loads, drying of the tree. Sometimes it is enough for a creak to appear on a wooden floor that even one of the nails is not pressed tightly to the base.

• If you saved on nails during installation, t. That is, they were nailed only in the middle, then the floorboards may begin to "walk" laterally. In this case, the boards will start rubbing against adjacent elements and cause an unpleasant sound.

• Another error. Sometimes, when installing around the entire perimeter of the room, an insufficient gap is left between the flooring and the wall. During the temperature drop and humidity, the material expands, and if the deformation (technological) gap is small or not at all, then the boards begin to rest against the fixed part of the wall. Because of this, they begin, albeit visual, but deformation. It turns out that new friction nodes are formed, which means a creak.

• Deformation of the board for any reason - it bent inward or outward, then an unpleasant sound will appear during the impact of the load. This is another reason that the boards should be fastened as best as possible so that the resulting fastening is reliable.
• Lags. If everything is fixed conscientiously, the boards do not cling to each other, then the case may be in lags. Over time, the timber dries up and begins to warp, and because of this, friction appears against the floor slab.

• Old floor. If the flooring is already years and years old, then there is a possibility that the logs or beams in some areas are rotting. In this case, the boards that are fixed on them begin to sag and touch the adjacent rows in the flooring, which is the reason for the formation of centers of friction.
• Non-compliance with installation technology. Yes, if your floors were laid relatively recently, but there is still a creak, then the matter is most likely that all installation rules were not followed.

  The second option - not the best quality lumber (boards and beams) were used for the arrangement. For example, poorly dried boards were bought and put into operation without the necessary processing. During drying, they deform, the fasteners begin to weaken and friction appears.

• Level. To eliminate the squeak of the floor with your own hands in the apartment, you should check whether they were set exactly at the level.

  Due to the difference in height, deflections can occur when the coating is loaded. The second reason would be the step between the lags, which was too large and unacceptable, that is, did not correspond to the thickness of the floorboards.

• Wrong screws / nails. It so happens that the wrong nails and screws were chosen for fastening, and then the fixation of the board after a while begins to weaken. The floorboard begins to move away from the floor, and during the load it lowers.

  Because of this, a squeak may also appear.

• Old building . In a building that was built 50-60 years ago, floor deformation sometimes occurs due to the fact that the foundation of the house has subsided. In this case, you will not do with simple installation, major repairs will be required.

When there is a list of possible causes, how do you find out exactly what your problem is?

How to determine the cause of the squeak yourself

Before using one of the presented methods to eliminate the problematic sound, you should decide why it appeared.

To do this, you will need to revise the boardwalk, inspect the places where the creak is formed.

You should also check the reliability of fixing the boards and the lag by applying certain efforts and load:

• If the board bends, and the hats are exposed, and also part of the nail leg, or some of the floorboards separately by themselves "walk" horizontally, then the problem here is that the fasteners of the flooring are loose.
• If the boards are knocked down well, but during the load on them, the structure begins to bend, then this will indicate that the logs are deformed or the base has subsided under them.
• When checking the coverage, use a building level, as most often a squeak appears due to the fact that in the areas of differences there are different heights of the boards.
• Sometimes it also happens that it is impossible to determine the cause of the unpleasant sound from the floor surface, and then the ideal option for diagnostics would be to dismantle several floorboards and check the condition of the lag.

  Naturally, it will not be superfluous to check the base on which everything is fastened.

• If the base begins to sag when someone walks on it, then there is a high probability that the joists under the boards are set too far apart, or boards with a small thickness were used for flooring. In this case, to eliminate the squeak of the floor in the apartment, it will be necessary to perform a complete reconstruction of the floor.This includes either a complete replacement of floorboards, or the installation of additional logs.
• During the inspection of the floor, press firmly on the boards that are located along the walls, as well as on the skirting boards.

  There is a chance that it was here that a crack appeared in the baseboard or the wood cracked. In this case, you will need to dismantle the skirting board.

Once the cause has been identified, a remedy can be selected.

Several ways to eliminate the unpleasant squeak

So, if the cause and area of ​​the squeak has been identified, then we can outline ways to eliminate the unpleasant sound. After that, let's look at several methods that have been tested in practice and more than once, and which gave extremely positive results.

How to get rid of the squeak on your own

All the methods mentioned earlier can be used in order to independently repair the boardwalk. This will require special tools. In addition, you will need instructions, which are presented for each of the methods below.

Sealing gaps between wedges and floorboards

This method of eliminating squeaks is suitable when the floor structure is strong and the surface is level , but due to long-term use, gaps appeared between the boards. You can fill up cracks and remove squeaks if you use a cord or wooden wedges.

If wedges are selected for work, then prepare wood slats, which in thickness will be equal to the width of the gaps in which they should be tightly inserted. It is desirable that the slats are the same width as the thickness of the floorboard. The prepared strip should fit snugly into the slot.

Before installation work, the gaps between the boards should first be cleaned of debris, and then remove the dust with a vacuum cleaner. Do not under any circumstances wet cleaning, as the wood must be completely dry during installation of the wedges.

Prepared gap wedges should be coated on each side with wood glue. After that, we forget the slats into the gaps between the boards. For this we recommend using a piece of timber / boards with a section of 7 * 2 cm. Such an anvil should be laid flat on top with slats, and hit with a hammer on it.

When installing the wedge into the gap between the boards, it will be most convenient to use an auxiliary bar for driving.

Such a device helps to distribute the impact evenly throughout the staff, which means it will help keep the area around the filling gap intact. If, after the installation work of the wedge, small gaps remain in the gap, then fill them with carpentry glue, add a little sawdust to it. After it dries, remove the excess with a sander, install a coarse nozzle on it.

Most craftsmen use a sealing cord together with wedges.If you use twine made from natural materials, then it, like the slats, should be impregnated with wood glue.

Synthetic cords do not need to be glued for sealing. They should be made from an elastic compound that can shrink during installation. When it enters the gap between the boards, it will expand and fill the entire space.

The cord should be laid over the gap that you plan to close, and using a hammer and chisel, deepen everything into the gap so that there is a space of 4/5 on top. After that, apply the putty over the wood using a narrow spatula over the cord.

Ideally, the formulation should be oil based. When the gap is filled, remove any excess putty that remains on the boards, we recommend that you remove everything with a soft cloth. When the work is over, wait for the putty to dry, and sand all the sealed gaps with sandpaper. After that, the surface should be cleaned of dust and treated with a water-repellent primer. After that, you can paint the surface.

Reinforcing the abutments with dowels

To eliminate the creak of a wooden floor that is made from a regular, not tongue-and-groove board, use this method. The fact is that over time the wood dries out, and the boards begin to "walk". For this reason, you should pull them together with dowels. To reinforce the covering in adjacent planks, drill holes at an angle of 45 degrees. The size of the drill should be matched to the diameter of the selected dowel, as a rule, it is 0.

8 cm. The resulting hole should be thoroughly cleaned of sawdust, and then grease the dowel with wood glue or PVA and drive into the hole until it stops.

The next dowel is installed in the same way, but from the side of the adjacent board. The installation step is approximately 5/6. When the installation of the fasteners is finished, you should wait for the glue to dry.

After that, the protruding parts of the dowels are carefully cut off using a hand jigsaw for wood. Then sand everything by hand or with a grinder. When vacuuming up the dust, cover the surface with a water repellent compound and paint. On the surface of the boards, the cut from the dowel will look like a small knot.

Strengthening with anchors

This method of eliminating the annoying sound will be used if the lags are loosely attached to the main screed.

But keep in mind that this can be realized in the case when the screed is reliable, that is, the anchor must firmly abut against it, support the boards, and take on the main load. In addition, floorboards should be at least 2.5 cm thick and strong enough. For this reason, before choosing this repair method, you will need to dismantle several boards and check the screed and plank covering, as well as what is the location of the lag.

If it is not possible to dismantle the boards, then you can find the logs by the heads of the nails, which are located perpendicular to the floorboards in rows.

After that, measure the distance from the surface of the board to the concrete base and do this with a long nail. It must be lowered through the drilled hole in the plank floor, all the way into the screed.

To do this, you need an electric drill with a wide drill, as well as a thin drill that will match the diameter of the anchor, a hexagon bit to screw in the anchor bolt, and putty, which will be mixed with sawdust. Anchors should be with a length equal to the height of the space from the floor surface to the rough screed, minutes 0.5 cm to deepen the anchor head into the tree.

The works are carried out as follows:

1. In the area where squeaks of the floor, step back from the log 1/5 of the distance, make a depression approximately 0.8 cm in the board using a wide drill.
2. After that, drill a hole in the center of the depression to install the anchors and screw the bolts into them.
3. Now you need to insert an anchor into the hole, which must necessarily abut against the tie and screw the bolt into it. The anchors should be screwed in at a distance of about 0.

   8 cm from each other so that they can support human weight, as they will act as props.

4. Dust off the grooves in the boards and fill with wood glue / putty mixed with sawdust.
5. After the putty or glue is dry, the surface must be cleaned, primed and painted.

There is another option for using anchors to eliminate floor squeaks in an apartment with your own hands - screw them through the plank covering and joists into a base made of concrete and pull the entire wooden structure to it. This will require longer anchor fittings as they will need to be buried in the concrete.

Pulling the boards onto the joists using self-tapping screws

If the fastening of the boards on the joists during operation has weakened, and the nails stopped attracting the flooring to the joists , additional fastening should be performed. As elements for fasteners, use long self-tapping screws, which should go through the board into the log of the log by at least 0.8 cm. It is best to choose fasteners where the thread will not reach close to the cap. Such self-tapping screws will help to firmly fix the boards on the bar.

Reinforcement of plank flooring is performed in this order:

1. First, determine the location of the log. This is usually done over the heads of the nails. If nails "walk" in the holes, then remove them with a nail puller.
2. Drill holes in areas of the floor where the board flexes. The drill should be slightly smaller than the self-tapping screw by 1-2 mm, since it should fit tightly into the hole made.

   After that, in the upper part, set them "under the sweep" so that the head of the element, after screwing in, goes 3/4 into the surface. Attach each board to the log using two self-tapping screws.

3. When everything is screwed in, clean the remaining grooves from dust, and then coat with a putty for wood.When the putty is dry, sand, sand, remove dust and paint if necessary.
4. If the plank floor is covered with plywood sheets, then the creak can be not only due to problems with the boards / logs, but also due to the fact that the top layer of the coating is poorly fixed.

   For this reason, before lifting the plywood flooring, you should check it for squeaking and sagging, walk on its surface. When the place of deflection is determined, it is worth trying to screw in self-tapping screws in this part, which will help to pull the plywood closer to the boards. There is a chance that even these actions will be enough, and you will never have a floor creak again.

If this does not help, you will have to dismantle the entire plywood flooring and look for the cause in the boarding / logs.

Glue-foam repair

At the moment, there are many new compositions on sale that are designed to perform repair work On the floor.

They help to eliminate the creak of the boards, which appeared due to the fact that the wooden structure has cracked. One of the new products is the Fix-A-Floor glue-foam, which perfectly copes with the removal of various defects of the wooden floor. It is not difficult to work with such a composition, and for this you only need a syringe-pistol in order to squeeze the mass out of the tube.

1. So, first, define the area for the squeak. Using regular chalk, mark the area where the unpleasant sound is most likely to occur.

2. Then drill 2-3 holes in the gap between the boards that squeak. The amount will depend on how long the repair area is. The distance between the holes should be between 20 and 30 cm.
3. Now fill in the holes and the gaps between the boards with a little mortar. When dry, it will firmly bind adjacent boards together.

4. At the end of work, remove excess glue before it hardens and wipe off the surface with a regular sponge.
5. If necessary, the holes can be masked with a putty composition that is close in color to the shade of the floor covering.

This is a fairly simple option to eliminate the creak of a wooden floor with your own hands, and it will not take much time and effort. If you do not have special foam glue, you can use regular polyurethane foam, which expands slightly. If using it, remove excess foam after it expands and hardens.

In this form, it can be easily cut with a clerical knife. On top of the gaps between the boards, coat with a putty oil composition, add a color to it that will ideally match the flooring.