Stud wall creaks and moans

[mrfillet]

Hello All,

I moved into a house thats 6 years old and i'm having trouble with the flooring in two bedrooms. When walking near the stud wall that seperates the two bedrooms, the wall make creaks and moans. Along the skirting board there is a 1cm (or maybe more) gap in the middle which reduces towards the ends of the room. There is a radiator in each room positioned right were the gap is. I've taken the carpet up in each room and using a torch I can see straight through in to the other room, also I can see the radiator pipes coming up through the floor and into the stud wall. So i'm guesing that the radiators have dried up the wood which has lifted it off the chipboard t&g flooring. I did think that maybe the floor had sunk slightly as it does drop a couple of millimeters when walked over. I've read somewhere that I could knock wooden wedges into the gap from both sides and then fill with filler or foam.

Has anyone got any ideas as this has me baffled.

 

[masona]

Try using screws near the nails, you may get away with it or it could the T&G wasn't glued which known for creaking noise

If you can get underneath then wooden wedge is ideal.

 

[mrfillet]

How would I get to the noggin without going through the plaster board? Also because theres a gap wouldn't screws pull the floor up towards the noggin or vis versa? or would neither move and i'd need to fill the gap with small blocks of wood first?

 

[masona]

Also because theres a gap wouldn't screws pull the floor up towards the noggin or vis versa?

No I'm thinking if you use screws where all the nails are surrounding the wall area to stop any movement, then you could remove the skirting board and put in a wedge under the stud wallplate and the floor

 

[PilotPete]

My house (build 1990) has exactly the same problem. Over the last 3 years it has got worse and worse due to the T&G chipboard floors and ribbed nails. I have so far done 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, stopping the noises as I do each room.

In the bathroom, where I have replaced the plasterboard walls I found that the sole plate (bottom noggin in the internal wall) only had 2 x 6" nails holding it to two joists through the floor. This batten is over 9ft long! I solved the problem in this room by putting long Spax screws (from Jewsons) through into every joist. These screws are superb and shorter ones are great for screwing down the T&G flooring too. In the bathroom I cut the floor out completely and have replaced with WPB ply, secured using Spax screws every 300mm to allow tiling (having added extra supports between all the joists).

In the bedrooms I could see under the sole plate once the carpet was removed, as you can. Plasterboard is not meant to be installed touching the floor, so you would expect there to be a gap behind the skirting at floor level. I found a similar problem with just a couple of nails holding the sole plate. Wedges are one solution, another is to pump something like Gripfill in under the sole plate, which sets hard and adheres sole plate to floor. I used a hacksaw blade to cut through the two nails which were causing the creaking (the sole plate staying put whilst the floor, joist and ribbed nail flexed with passing traffic). You will need a length of tube to add to the nozzle of the Gripfill to ensure you get it far enough under into the middle of the sole plate (or do it from both rooms). I found McDonalds straws to be particulary suitable as the can be slid into a small gap and are pretty cheap

Whilst you have the carpet up it is worth considering a box of screws to screw the whole floor down rather than to trust the nails as in a few years you might find the floor starts to creak in other places. I personally lifted the floor (you have to drill the heads off ribbed nails and then punch the shafts through into the joist or pull them out once you have lifted the boards, obviously using a circular saw with the blade set to floor board depth (usually 18mm) to get the first row of boards up cutting off the tongue. Another thing to check if you do this is the supports for the joists in the external walls; my neighbour found his ground floor joists had been levelled using slate packers which had crushed in several places leading to his floor being very uneven. He replaced them using plastic and levelled the floor up again. Also, they had put very few noggins in between the joists, which doesn't help much either!