Squeaky floors are driving us mad!

[Ricky2]

I know I‘ve got a problem with very squeaky floors upstairs, but am just not sure how serious a problem it is.

This is an 8 year old 4 bedroom Cornish house built in traditional block-work with painted rendering. The upstairs floors are unfortunately chipboard. The original builder screwed the boards down but did not glue them down.

From early on we had developed squeaky floors in the upstairs hall and bedrooms. I hired a chippy in for a day and together we screwed a lot of them down with more (longer) screws. They stopped squeaking for a while but it soon returned.

Since then I have had a couple of goes myself mimicking what he did and each time it improves it for a while but then the squeaks return.

Meanwhile I had to get another chippy on for a day to stop the staircase from moving. He found the builder had put the bottom dog-leg of the staircase together with nails instead of screws and did a great job putting that right. While he was there I asked his advice on the upstairs squeaks and he said it may not be the boards but maybe the main support timbers have shrunk and it is them that are causing the problem. If that is the case then that strikes me as being a major job as all the upstairs walls are constructed on top of the floors.

Am I right in being concerned? Is this a likely explanation? What will I need to do to investigate? And is this sort of thing likely to be covered by NHBC (which has 2 years to run).

 

[mattysupra]

if you still have 2 years left then they should put it right. The only way to do this tho is to take it all up and put plywood down and brace any joists that need doing at the same time!

However, they will not do this as they will try to blame you for messing with the floor in the first place. Give it a try tho!

 

[garrymum]

My house is about 8 years old and I had a patch that was VERY VERY squeaky / creaky.

I cut out a small section of the chipboard where the squeak / creak was happening. I used some 4 x 2 to brace between the joists, then glued and screwed the piece back down. Also, with an old small screwdriver and scored along all the tongue and groove joints around the area to score out a depression of only a couple of mm. I then put some wood glue in these joints. This, I did mid december and have not had any squeaks / creaks since

 

[Ricky2]

Thanks for the advice gents

 

[Ricky2]

Followed your example garrymun
Paid a local chippy with a good reputation to lift all the boards in the upstairs hall. He found all sorts of problems caused by shrinkage of timbers and the original builder's work.
He braced all timbers using 2"x2" glued and scrwed in herring bone pattern, then glued and screwed new boards down including glueing all edges per your advice.
Result this morning is a perfectly quiet floor but the acid test is how it will be in 6 months time I guess
Thanks again for the help