I live in a first floor 1960's flat with concrete floors which have been finished roughly (i.e no smooth screed). The original flooring solution for these floors was to lay a polythene damp proof membrane over the concrete then a layer of loose rockwool insulation. A series of softwood battens were then loosely laid and nailed to these were 8 x 4 ft chipboard panels (not tongue and groove).
When I moved in there was evidence of flood damage to the chipboard so I employed a joiner to replace the floors. He advised that he would fix new battens with large screws into the concrete and then replace the chipboard with 8 x 2 ft flooring grade chipboard (not glued together).This was screwed into the battens.
This worked well for about a week then it began creaking. This was so loud that the neighbour below me complained so much that I took up the floor myself. I have worked out that the battens which ran the whole length of the room (about 5m in length and at 400mm centres across the width of the room) were creaking because of the uneven concrete floor. Luckily the floor was easy to remove because the t&g boards were not glued because there are central heating pipes and electric cables running under the floor and access may be required in the future.
I have since layed three floors myself in various ways to try to solve the creaking effects of chipboard and batten floating floors and I feel like demoliting the bloody building.
Does anybody have a solution?
When I moved in there was evidence of flood damage to the chipboard so I employed a joiner to replace the floors. He advised that he would fix new battens with large screws into the concrete and then replace the chipboard with 8 x 2 ft flooring grade chipboard (not glued together).This was screwed into the battens.
This worked well for about a week then it began creaking. This was so loud that the neighbour below me complained so much that I took up the floor myself. I have worked out that the battens which ran the whole length of the room (about 5m in length and at 400mm centres across the width of the room) were creaking because of the uneven concrete floor. Luckily the floor was easy to remove because the t&g boards were not glued because there are central heating pipes and electric cables running under the floor and access may be required in the future.
I have since layed three floors myself in various ways to try to solve the creaking effects of chipboard and batten floating floors and I feel like demoliting the bloody building.
Does anybody have a solution?
