Hardwood flooring over existing floorboards - what to do?

[rarara]

Just moved and have a dilemma about what to do....

There is hardwood flooring throughout the hall, lounge etc (20mm, maple, hidden nailed when laid etc - apparently of good quality etc) which I was just going to rip up and then sand the original boards. That way all other rooms would be consistent too.

I have now been swayed (floorer, family etc) to keep the hardwood and once skimmed/varnished it should look great, and be a close match to the pine floorboards which will be sanded elsewhere. There is also the advantage of any historical damage (radiators etc) will not be a factor.

My main gripe is that parts of the hardwood are quite creaky (not in a squeaky floorboard way, more a crackly sound that I tend to associate with laminates - one of the reasons I wasn't originally keen). So, my questions is:

How to remove this noise? Can I just make use of some tongue tite screws in the worst areas, which should be fairly invisible after sanding?

Lifting a lot of the hardwood to fix some minor noise is pretty unappealing to me financially.

 

[ree]

Have you checked for expansion room at any abutments?

Are the floors in question suspended floors? If they are, and you can get under them, then you could screw up from below to pull down any creaking flooring.

After sanding you could stain and finish all the floors the matching same.

 

[rarara]

"Have you checked for expansion room at any abutments?"

The creakiest area is in a hallway and the sections there are showing slight gaps between hardwood boards - presumably these have expanded due to floor movement and could be pushing against the walls at one/either side? I am not sure how to get these tight again - there is no movement in terms of trying to wedge them back and I have been told that to get these snug again would require a large section to be lifted, with possible resultant damage to hardwood etc

The floor isn't suspended - only hardwood laid over the original floorboards.

 

[geraldthehamster]

Personally I'd still be tempted to remove the lot - it's going to be hard to stain hardwood flooring to an exact match with the softwood boards that you have elsewhere, if this is important.

It's probably worth trying the screws you suggest, if you can do it in hidden areas. There's nothing to lose.

A "suspended floor" is one with a void underneath. If you have floorboards fixed to joists, you most likely have a suspended floor. Sometimes there's enough space underneath to crawl down there to work, in which case you could try driving screws up through the floorboards into the hardwood flooring in the affected areas - making sure the screws are shorter than the combined thickness of both boards! I've never had a house with an under-floor void deep enough to work in.

Cheers
Richard

 

[foxhole]

You could cover with talc and brush over when sweeping the talc acts as a dry lube to help prevent squeaks.

 

[baileysufc]

I had this with a oak floor easily solved u need to fat mates to stand on the offending area abd a nail gun and put a couple of 16g brads down there will be fairly invisable troy

 

[AronSearle]

The risk of brads is that over time movement will occur up and down the shank, as brads have very small or almost no head to them.