Partition Wall Creaking against floor.

[recalluk]

Ok chaps and chapesses, brain picking time.

I have recently moved into a new home, one minor irritation is I have some creaks under my partition walls against the floor when walking in certain areas. Having done a lot of googleing / investigation it appears the nails holding the metal partition sole plate to the floor creak against it as I walk and deform the board (chip board style).

One suggestion is to use a hacksaw blade to cut the existing screws under the partition (remove skirtingfirst) then put a screw in at a 45 angle into the sole plate of the partition wall having first drilled a pilot hole through the plate slightly larger than the screw shank therefore clamping the board to the plate and stopping the movement on the nail.

A previous attempt at putting small wedges into the gap solved this problem for about a month.

Another suggestion is grip fil into the gap.

Now my question is this .. given the plate is metal and floor wooden does all this seem like a sensible course of actions ?

 

[Symptoms]

Point 1. New house, get the builder back in under the guarantee; they should never have used nails (even annulars) in this situation. Experience should have taught them to use screws!

If no luck as above then broadly speaking your fix seems appropriate. Although in your second paragraph you seem to contradict yourself by mentioning 'screws' instead of 'nails' (1st para). If you whip the skirting off you may be able to dig away bits of the plasterboard to create windows to see the floor plate & perform the remedial action. Wedge the gap between floor & plate to allow the Gripfill in, then screw down (having removed the wedges first). I would use maybe 6mm (dia) chipboard screws. Beware, always try to locate underfloor services (pipes & cables) before putting screws through. Skirtings back on.

 

[noseall]

chipboard! pile of shoite.

squeaking, emanating from chipboard floors, is the devils way of communicating through this evil floor deck.

 

[recalluk]

Cheers Guys, will try this at the weekend. Whoops on the 2nd Para, it should be nails not screws as they were put in with nailgun I suspect. Only issue I was wondering is how wether I should pilot through the metal plate .. but this seems a given now. Much appreciated.

 

[FIDALEO]

I've got exactly the same problem and wonderd if your fix worked

Thanks