The floorboard creaks what to do. If the wooden floor creaks - what to do and how to be. Partial repairs without replacing the coating

Over time, many residents of old houses are faced with the problem that the wooden plank floor begins to creak. Such floors usually lie on logs located on top of a concrete slab, loosen over time and begin to creak when walking on them. This becomes especially noticeable and annoying at night, when you try to walk quietly around the room and corridor, the floor creaks, and you end up waking your loved ones.

The main reasons why floors creak

If the floor squeaks, then before starting repairs, you need to analyze the possible causes of the squeak. Basically, the reasons why a wooden floor creaks are due to its design. There are several options that were mostly used for flooring in old apartments and houses:

Useful information:

In the first case, wooden blocks or logs were laid on the concrete floor, while the distance between them was about 40 cm. On top of them was a sheathing consisting of a chipboard or plywood layer, on top of which was a fiberboard covering.
In the second version, wooden boards were attached on top of the logs fixed to a concrete slab.

If floor boards creak, then the cheapest option would be to fix them on self-tapping screws, especially since you can do this yourself. At the beginning, you need to decide at what distance from the concrete slab the old flooring is located. To do this, drill a small hole in the floor with a diameter of about 4 mm and measure the depth, you can do this with a wire. Then you need to purchase and not stick out on the surface of the coating. The next step is to determine the location of the lag, this can be done using old nails or by tearing off the baseboard near one of the walls. Then, holes are drilled in the floor slightly less than the diameter of the screws, onto which all floor boards are fixed in order with a screwdriver.

Photo: at the request of Yandex and Google

The problem of squeaky floors is not limited to residents of older homes. A badly laid new laminate can also annoy you with hateful sounds. We suggest not to endure and not to sneak around the apartment on tiptoe when someone close to you is sleeping, but to radically solve this problem. There are a lot of options for eliminating squeak - choose your own.

Why do floors creak?

The boards are not firmly fixed to the underfloor beams. As a result, inevitable loosening occurs, which is why the floor creaks;
The simplest and most natural reason is that the tree has "dried up". Unfortunately, this happens with natural material when the floor serves you for a very long time;
Special wooden linings sagged;
Nails and screws are loose;
The ends of the boards move when walking on the floor;
Insufficient clearance between wall base and floor.

The floors in the apartment creak: we offer several options for fixing the problem

Option 1: polyurethane foam

This is not to say that this method will help one hundred percent, but with a not very large creak, it really works. Common polyurethane foam is used, which is carefully blown into the subfloor. This is done quite simply, which means that even a beginner can cope with the elimination of squeak.

An indisputable plus of this option is that you do not need to remove the boards from the floor. It is enough to drill a certain number of neat holes and blow the foam there. It can also be poured into the cracks between the boards. The principle of operation is simple: the poured foam will harden and expand, as a result of which the floorboards will be pressed down and the creak will disappear.

However, this option has two obvious drawbacks. First, this method is quite costly. You will need a lot of foam, but good material from a trusted manufacturer is not cheap. Secondly, fragility. Unfortunately, after a while, the creak will return again, because the foam breaks down and squeezes. However, this may not happen, because it all depends on what kind of load your floor is experiencing daily. If we are talking, for example, about an office where people are constantly moving, then the creak will return for sure. But in an apartment, this method will be much more durable. The next answers to the question why the floor creaks, read below.

Option 2: driving wedges

If the wooden floor creaks, then wedges will come in handy. This option is more durable than polyurethane foam, and much less expensive. True, you have to work hard.

Ideally, if you have the opportunity to work with the "lower" floor (say, in the country or in the house). In this case, wedges must be knocked out between the boards themselves and the beams. Beforehand, each wedge should be greased with high-quality glue.

If you can't get to the subfloor, then just drive wood wedges into the gaps between the floorboards. There can be a lot of such gaps, and the work will be quite painstaking, but believe me: it's worth it. Your working tools are a cone-shaped hammer and a conventional hammer. Keep in mind that the approximate distance between the 2 wedges should be approximately 0.17-0.22 millimeters. It is necessary to tap the wedges in such a way that the upper part does not go over the top of the board in any case. Now you know what to do to prevent the floor from creaking. But that's not all: what if you like the next option better?

Option 3: self-tapping screws

Another good answer to the question of what to do if the floors in the apartment creak. True, there is one “but”: you will have to work with self-tapping screws only if the floor of the boards, which is mounted on a concrete base, creaks. The essence of the method is simple: every place from where an unpleasant sound comes from is “stretched” with self-tapping screws. The huge advantage of work is that you will forget about the creak for a really long time.

It is worth starting with identifying problem areas and finding beams / logs (they should be marked on the floor, for example, with chalk). It is not difficult to determine the area where the lag is located: as a rule, these are the heads of screws or nails. With their help, the floorboards are attached to the beams. Then it is worth making sure that no communications, wires, and so on pass through in the places found.

Next, we need a drill: in the place of the squeak through the board, we drill a hole, after which, using a thin wire, we accurately measure the distance to the concrete surface. Let's say you have a distance of eight centimeters. In this case, you need to use self-tapping screws with a length of at least nine to ten centimeters. It remains only to screw the screws through the places of contact between the boards and the lags. We do this all the way until we feel that we have touched the concrete. In most cases, two to four screws are needed for one problematic creaky spot. As a result, thanks to self-tapping screws, additional support is created to support the beams. The floor, as it were, rises in the “sore” place, and the unpleasant sound disappears. It is only important to check that each screw head is well recessed. As you can see, eliminating the squeak without opening the floor is easy!

Option 4: plywood

So, your chipboard floors creak. To forget about this sound forever, it is enough to attach a simple plywood over the material. Please note that the plywood used must be no thinner than twelve millimeters. Plywood must first be cut into squares small size... Then make sure your subfloor is completely dry. The plywood is fixed to the floor with screws or special glue. Between the "squares" you need to leave gaps of nine to ten millimeters. For more details on how to eliminate squeaky floors in an apartment, see the video below:

Option 5: anchoring method

Now let's try to remove the unpleasant squeak of the floor using special metal anchors. The reliability of the result of such work is one hundred percent. But there is also a significant disadvantage: this is the most expensive and labor-intensive option.

So, if you decide not to change the floor, then you will have to work according to the so-called principle of through installation. Its essence is that the metal anchor must go through the flooring. To get started, use a hammer drill to drill a small hole in the concrete through the crossbeams and the floor. Next, a special outer shell made of metal is installed. It is into it that the anchor must be screwed directly into it. This will secure the lag to them.

Keep in mind that the top of the anchor should not stick out above the deck. To do this, the entrance of the hole must first be drilled using a nozzle of a slightly larger diameter. Ideally, if you can install such anchors around the perimeter of the entire room.

On a note! The optimal distance between the anchors is ninety centimeters. With this in mind, plan how many fasteners you need. Now you know what to do if your floors creak!

The ecology of consumption. The Manor: Perhaps there is no stronger irritant than a creaky wooden floor. It is especially annoying if such a phenomenon overtakes tenants soon after a major overhaul and you have to tear off the finishing cover. Today we'll show you what to do if your wood floors creak and how to avoid it in the future.

There is perhaps no stronger irritant than a creaky wooden floor. It is especially annoying if such a phenomenon overtakes tenants soon after a major overhaul and you have to tear off the finishing cover. Today we'll show you what to do if your wood floors creak and how to avoid it in the future.

The reasons for the squeak

Actually, the ultimate cause of the creaking floor is only one - friction between two poorly fixed parts. But there are three typical places in which such a phenomenon can be observed.

In the simplest case, the floor creaks due to friction between adjacent floorboards: one of them bends under load and scrapes against the adjacent one. Such a squeak has a characteristic dry sound and is quite easily detected when the floor boards are successively pushed through.

A more characteristic creak with a thin squeak occurs due to the weakened fastening of the nails to the logs. The rusty metal inside the dry wood creates a really nasty grind and is much more difficult to locate due to the fact that the nail heads are usually hidden under several layers of paint.

The third and most rare type of squeak is the loose connections of the composite lags and the bridges between them. The appearance of such a creak is typical for frame and multi-storey buildings with a complex system wooden floors... The sound of the floor when walking in such cases is muffled and crackling.

Do I need to rip off the floor

If the wooden floor was laid with a tongue-and-groove board for painting or varnished, then the boards will not have to be torn off. It is quite possible to eliminate the creak between the floorboards from the surface, plus there is a reason to restore the wooden floor, smooth out irregularities with putty, and renew the paintwork.

In some cases, repairs may require tearing off the finish or the boardwalk beneath. For example, if the subfloor boards creak, on top of which the final floor is laid -la minat or linoleum. In such cases, the finished floor is sorted out, performing the required manipulations and getting rid of the squeak, and then laying it back.

If the lag system is the source of the squeak, then larger-scale repair work will have to be carried out. The greatest difficulty lies in localizing the creaking joint, which is almost impossible to do blindly. Therefore, the failure of the plank flooring cannot be avoided.

Rowing method

The creaking ends of the floorboards can be wedged together, thereby concentrating friction in several places and avoiding the string effect. For this, ordinary wood chips or wedges with a thickness of 0.5 to 3 mm and a width of 30–35 mm are used.

This method is good for eliminating squeaks in old solid plank floors, where cracks of uneven thickness have appeared as a result of shrinkage and warping. At the widest point of the creaking joint, the first wedge is hammered, then a few more are added with an indent of 50–80 cm. To facilitate the entry of the wedge, you can widen the joint with a chisel, hammering it in by 3-5 mm.

Ragging is a rather meticulous process, but this is almost the only method of local repairing a creaky floor without breaking the flooring. After the boards are compacted, it is necessary to seal the cracks with putty; in the simplest case, a mixture of PVA and small sawdust will do.

Reinforcing the floor

The reason for the appearance of a squeak on the ends and fasteners of the boards may be insufficiently tight pressing of the flooring to the joists. This is a typical wood floor disease: after a few drying cycles, nails can loosen and the entire flooring becomes loose.

The essence of strengthening the floor is to restore the density of pressing the boards with self-tapping screws, which over time do not lose the quality of pressing. The catch is that by pressing the warped board in one place, you can loosen the fastening at other points, so it will be correct to reinforce the entire floor at once.

Another subtlety is the need to drill the boards before screwing in the screws to avoid snagging the threads in them. The method is ideal for eliminating squeaks in the subfloor. Finishing coatings can also be strengthened with self-tapping screws, but the traces of the hats will have to be masked with a putty, which, moreover, must be matched to the tone of the wood when opening the floors with varnish.

The greatest difficulty is to determine the location of the lag, if the traces of fastening the flooring are hidden. Among all the methods, two of the most effective can be distinguished: drilling with control of the drill exit in order to determine the step of installing the lag and the breakdown of the extreme boards.

Busting the boardwalk

Overhauling a wooden floor is the only way to eliminate creak with a guarantee, without requiring a significant investment. And with creaking lags, there is practically no alternative to this method.

The point is to consistently rip and fasten the boards in place, without changing their order for a tighter fit. First, remove 3-5 boards from one edge, then visually assess the space under the floor, the safety of the log, the presence of harmful organic matter with good additional light.

When busting, fix the first board and tear off one by one after checking and fixing each subsequent one. All boards are checked for rotting and damage by pests, the unusable ones are replaced with new ones of the same thickness, adjusting the ends with a plane for tight joining.

To avoid squeaking between the floorboards in the future, you can pull the boards together on wooden dowels and tighten them tightly with a car jack. If there is no need for a hidden fastening, it is recommended to use self-tapping screws - two for each attachment point to the logs.

Surface strengthening

Not a very budgetary, but very effective way to get rid of a subfloor from a squeak is to lay plywood on it with frequent attracting fastening with self-tapping screws. The thickness of the flooring must be at least 12 mm, fastening is carried out into each board in two rows in a checkerboard pattern no further than 30–35 mm from the edge.

In addition to self-tapping screws, a mixture of sawdust or mineral chips with busylate glue will help to achieve high-quality adhesion. It is important to arrange the flooring sheets in such a way that the joints between them do not contribute to the bending of the boards in the future. Ideally, you should divide the additional flooring into two layers of 6–8 mm each, fastening them together with an adhesive mixture and carefully think over the ligation scheme for the joints.

The method is distinguished by high technological complexity. In addition to the high-quality tightening of self-tapping screws and the correct arrangement of the sheets, it is required to remember the layout of the boards so that each of them is reinforced and pulled. To do this, on the walls, the location of the joints is marked with risks, along which they pull the thread or beat off the lines with a dye cord.

Other options

There are also many "folk" ways to get rid of the squeak between the floorboards or where they are attached. Contrary to popular belief, sealing the gaps between the boards with an adhesive mixture does not give an effect, at least not long-term.

It is better to warm up the joint with a construction hairdryer and pour melted paraffin or stearin into it. The method with impregnation of boards with vaseline or vegetable oil works in a similar way. Just do not use machine and motor oils, they are not environmentally friendly.

As a preventive measure to prevent squeaking, it is recommended to tightly rally the floor boards using grooved ends or oak dowels. You can also treat the ends of the boards with compounds that reduce friction - silicone sealant or rubber paste. Instead of regular nails, it is better to use brushed nails, which are less susceptible to loosening. published

Especially when it comes to wood materials.

There are several reasons for this problem, but if you wish, it is easy to deal with it on your own.

One of the most important reasons is the deformation of the material while the drying process is in progress.

If initially the humidity was more than 12 percent, then over time warping cannot be avoided.

Lack of optimal performance often leads to this.

There are other reasons that lead to this:

The strength of the connections has been reduced. Gradually, the fasteners begin to loosen. At the same time, the density of contraction of individual parts made of wood begins to decrease.
Reducing the gap connecting the boards to the walls. Even a small frictional force is sufficient for the appearance of a squeak.
The appearance of rot, fungus. They appear where they are constantly supported high level humidity. As a result, the material continues to deform further.
The rigidity of the structure has been weakened. Free movement of parts begins relative to each other, if their fit remains free.

The creak also appears due to mistakes that were made during. Of the most common, it is worth noting:

The situation when the joists are installed incorrectly, and too large a distance is created between the supporting beams.
The choice of thickness regardless of what the operating conditions will be.

The follow-up algorithm for correcting the problem is selected depending on what the cause was.

Tools and fixtures

The type of repair work determines which of the devices will be needed in the future. The minimum list of instruments will consist of:

Drills. Needed in order to create holes.
Marker or crayon. They help to mark places where additional fasteners are required, other varieties.
Ax. It will be needed when adjusting the beams, or wedges. Otherwise, they will not be able to boast of the correct, appropriate size.
Hammer. Fixes individual elements if nails are used together with it.
A hacksaw that will cut the board liners.
A nail puller, without which it is impossible to understand how to make the floors not creak in the apartment.

Additional devices may be needed, such as cement or a mixture for plastering, glue or dry wood, screws, bars.

What methods to use

Completely sorting through a floor created on a wooden base is the longest, which takes the most energy.

It is chosen if there are too many defects on the surface.

And if you can't get rid of them by doing only local work.

In this situation, a complete check of damaged items becomes mandatory.

They are replaced with new ones if necessary. If the floor is laid on a concrete base, the procedure will look like this :

Start by fixing the lag on the base of. To do this, you need to take a drill with a drill for working with a wooden base. And a puncher. Thanks to these tools, holes are created with the most accurate, suitable dimensions.
Then it is necessary to drive the anchor into the hole using a hammer. The part must be expanded.
After that she fits herself batten... We use a hacksaw, or electric jigsaw so that there is no connection with, near which the structure is fixed.
We fix the floorboards on the joists. For this, self-tapping screws are used. The hats must be sunk in until they are at the level of the floor itself.

It is easier to get rid of the problem without disassembling the structure. It is suitable for both regular boards and parquet boards.

We work with ordinary wooden floors

Wooden wedges can be used if the creak appears due to the fact that the boards are loosely fixed, deformation of some areas. The wedges are driven into the space between the floorboards. This helps to eliminate friction, even minimal friction.

If the defeat is more serious, then self-tapping screws are used for additional fastening.

First, you need to identify areas that have become sources of unpleasant sound. They are marked with the usual crayon.
Further, there are areas where the lags are located. Nails in the entire structure are taken as a guide. Alternatively, you can remove the boards that are in the extreme position.
Holes are drilled in the floorboards, with a step of no more than 15 centimeters between the parts. Compared to self-tapping screws, the diameter of these holes should be 1-2 millimeters smaller.
It is easy to screw the boards to the logs if you have a screwdriver at hand, or a drill with an appropriate attachment. The hats should be recessed, but only slightly.

If the reason for the squeak is poor fixation of the lag, then the latter require additional fixation. To do this, take anchors made from.

The effectiveness of the method is known, but it is also time consuming. And it is used if the base near the coating itself is made of concrete. 1 meter is the minimum distance at which the anchors should be located from each other.

The use of high power drills and rock drills helps to simplify the work. Thanks to special equipment, holes are drilled through the material, no special effort is required.

How to deal with parquet

Parquet is one of the types of wood floors.

Over time, an unpleasant creak may also appear inside this material.

Repairs must be carried out pointwise, since the coating itself consists of separate parts.

Work begins with determining the place where unpleasant sounds appear.

Deformed areas are marked so that later you do not get confused in their location. Only after that do they proceed to the following operations, which will require a large-volume syringe without a needle, cement with:

A hole is drilled in the middle of the creaking bar, very carefully.
Creature cement mortar with the same consistency as milk.
Placing the mixture inside the syringe. After - checking the strength and extrusion process.
Dilution with water will help to cope with a thick mixture. A small amount of cement is usually added to the liquid.
The next step is to immerse the syringe into the hole with preliminary preparation. Then they proceed to pouring the solution itself, in small doses. Air is not able to escape if you do not take breaks while performing activities.
The hole must be completely filled, until this moment the filling continues. Those who are interested in how to make the floors do not creak with foam can act in about the same way.

It only remains to wait until the material is completely dry. And then you need to make sure that the creak is gone. The surface is sealed with mastic or with a special putty for wooden bases.

This is necessary so that there is no trace left of the work done, which can be noticeable to prying eyes. The last stage is polishing.

Polyurethane glue can be an excellent alternative to cement mortar when performing this type.

Polyurethane foam is sometimes also used in order to fill the space under damaged strips, to strengthen the structure. But this is usually only a temporary measure.

It is not recommended to immediately work with all areas emitting a squeak. You can start working on the following elements only after the effectiveness of the method has been tested on the previous ones. Sometimes it becomes necessary to completely redecorate the parquet if the creak persists.

About what to do if the floor creaks - in the video:

All those who live in old private houses often experience the same problem over time - the wooden floor creaks - we will tell you what to do in this case in this article. The positive point in this case is that all the work can be done by hand.

Possible causes of squeaks

If lags creak, the following reasons are possible:

Poorly fixed boards... This fact is the reason for the squeak most often. How to remove squeaky floors in this case, you ask. You just need to fix the boards more securely, and self-tapping screws are best for this. Unlike nails, they will not loosen over time.
The pads for the logs are loose or incorrectly installed... Over time, the floor creaks in the apartment, because the logs become not so stable and this manifests itself when walking.
Gaps between the boards... This happens if, during the laying process, insufficiently dried wood was used as raw material or it could dry out after the change of season. In this case, the boards begin to rub against each other, which is accompanied by an unpleasant sound.
Laying without observing the gap between the boards and the wall... In this case, squeaks occur due to the fact that a gap of 10 mm was not left from the wall, which is necessary so that the board can expand freely during a change in the microclimate. As a result, the boards swell or swell - a creak occurs at the wall at the point of contact with them.

Naturally, squeaks can also occur when some of these factors combine. In order to understand how to remove the creak of a wooden floor, you need to understand its nature. Often, a simple inspection is sufficient, but sometimes it may be necessary to remove a couple of boards to determine the condition of the logs.

Now you need to figure out what to do to prevent the floors from creaking if they are made of plywood. An additional cause of squeaks can be inter-sheet friction. Since the installation of the sheet cover is carried out in compliance with the gaps, which are soon covered with putty, therefore, such side moments arise.

Getting rid of floor creaks

Screwing the floorboards

In the old days, there were probably no boards that were not attached to the floor with nails. Such floors are still in use and many of them have not been repaired for more than a dozen years. It can be assumed that most of the nails are loose, and they need to be replaced with a modern effective fastening in the form of self-tapping screws.

Floor scrolling sequence:

Initially, you need to know the thickness of the lag. This can be done by drilling a hole in the floor and measuring the length to the base. You can go the other way - remove one floorboard. Self-tapping screws should be 1.5 cm shorter than the combined length of the floorboard and joists.

If you decide to use a screwdriver instead of an electric drill, then it must be powerful enough and have a capacious battery, otherwise the repair process will be significantly delayed.

If the screwdriver cannot cope with screwing in the screws, you can drill holes for them before installation. It is not necessary to remove old nails if they do not interfere.
Lags, as a rule, are located 600 mm apart. To understand how many screws should be purchased, you need to multiply the number of lags by the number of boards located across the entire width.
Further, everything is banal and simple - you need to screw all the boards tightly, while the hats should be under the sweat. If squeaks are still heard somewhere, then these places should be noted in order to fix them additionally later.
This is followed by leveling the surface with plywood. It is also fixed to the floor with self-tapping screws with a pitch of 150-200 mm. If they ate them less often, then they may dangle.

Gaps between the boards

If there are gaps between the boards, because of which the floors creak - what to do without disassembling them, in this case, is to fix it with wood wedges.

The sequence of operations:

carve wooden wedges out of wood, determining right size;
cover them with glue and hammer them into the gap, the wedges should sit tight;
after the glue dries, the excess wedges can be cut off flush with the base.

The disadvantage of this method is that each time the rail needs to be adjusted to the size of the slots, and this is a very long time.

It's easier to use a cord instead of a rail:

You will need to buy a braided synthetic cord. Then it is impregnated with wood glue or PVA glue, and with the help of a core or a doboinik, the cord is driven in between the boards about half of their thickness.
The upper part of the slots is filled with homemade putty, which includes sawdust and PVA glue. It should have a pasty consistency.
The putty should be applied with a slight excess so that after drying, the excess can be cut off flush with the base floor. When the floor is replaced in a Khrushchev with their own hands, slightly different methods are used.

Restoration of conventional floorboards

Not everyone knows what to do if the floor in the apartment creaks, in the case when an ordinary board was used to make such a floor.

A squeak occurs because the floorboards begin to sag during loading, since the nearby boards do not hold them in any way.

What to do to prevent the wooden floors from creaking in this case is to fasten the boards to one another.

You will need a long drill, wooden dowels and the following sequence of actions:

Make a hole in the board at an acute angle so that it reaches the adjacent board.
Cover the dowel with PVA glue and drive it into drilled hole... It should penetrate every board by about 50%.
The second hole should be made in the other direction in a nearby board after 200-300 mm. Thanks to this, the dowels will support the boards by analogy with the grooved ones.

Expansion gap

Around the entire perimeter, a gap of 10 mm should be provided in case of temperature extremes. If you removed the skirting boards and found wedges under them, then they must be removed without fail. If there is no gap at all, then you will need to remove the outer boards and shorten them, and then attach them back.

Loose lags

If, after checking, it turned out that the logs were not installed completely correctly, then in such cases, often, you have to rebuild the floor, be it an apartment or private house... There are times when this problem occurs in a specific place, it is easier to solve it - you just need to remove part of the sheathing and replace the linings for the logs or on them.

It is worth noting that the logs should not be fixed to the base, thus deteriorating the soundproofing qualities of the floor.

The thickness of the boards and the intervals between the lags

If the wooden floor creaks in the apartment - what to do if this happens when moving on it? This happens when the board is too thin or the distance between the logs is insufficient.

The dimensions of the problem floor should be taken off and compared with the required indicators. If the difference is very large, then the floor will need to be redone, providing it with intermediate boards to ensure sufficient structural strength.

The problem can be partially solved by adding additional supports between the lags, but you need to understand that this exit is temporary.

You will need to do the following:

You will need large self-tapping screws to secure the planks securely.
The length of the self-tapping screws should not be less than the distance from the top of the board to the concrete screed.
Make a hole with a diameter slightly less than that of the screw. The excess length of the self-tapping screw must be cut.
The self-tapping screw should be screwed in until it reaches the concrete base.
Self-tapping screws must be cut so that they are not sharp, otherwise they will quickly ruin the concrete screed and stop supporting the bending boards.

Outcome

It is worth remembering that styling flooring over a creaky floor will not save the situation; annoying sounds will not go anywhere. In any case, measures will be needed to restore the floor, it is better to do this in advance.