Woodchip floor boards, need advice

[matmushroom]

Hi,

Iv just moved into my new house, and its great......apart from the floor boards. There those cheap woodchip ones, and they bang, creak, and pop whenever you walk around upstairs, and it ecos down stairs quite alot.

Anyway, In one room I have lifted the carpet and put a load of screws down (one next to every nail)...this has helped, but has not totaly solved the problem in that one room. All the floor boards on the whole floor are connected, and the wall are partition walls that sit ontop of the boards, so even though its helped in that room, walking around causes noise in other rooms, as the effect passes under the walls

obviously I plan to screw the rest of the boards down, but this brings me to my questions...


1. Some of the partition walls pass over parts of the boards that would need to be screwed down..so I cannot see anyway to actually screw that bit down because theres a wall on top if it. Does anyone have any surgestions?

2. Assuming I screw the boards down, and its still making noise, how much of a job would it be to lift all the boards and replace them with somthing other than woodchip, this is not somthing I would do, I would have to get somone into do it...but is it a realistic thing to do, how much would it cost, and how much time would it take (we are in a small/avarage 3 bedroom uk house)?


Any advice would be great

cheers

 

[JohnD]

pull them up and put down ply.

 

[matmushroom]

Hi john,

what product would you recomend...and who should I get into do this, would this be a general builder, or maybe a carpenter?

 

[JohnD]

18mm ply is much better. A carpenter or joiner (you will need to take off the skirting boards to put it down). or you can do it yourself (not very difficult once the carpets and furniture are out of the way)

make sure all short edges are supported, using nogs or cutting to fit if the joins do not come over a joist

have a look at the ply before buying it - WBP ply resists damp; I got some spruce flooring ply recently which has a very poor surface (knot holes)

you can put mineral wool batts between the joist to reduce noise even more

the partition walls are probably built on doubled joists, it is possible to cut the old boards flush and nail a batten on the side for the new board to sit on.

 

[Deluks]

You can get tonge & groove plywood flooring sheets, 8x2, they are about £15 -£20 each unless you shop around/haggle.

The osb flooring panels are a good middle ground and slightly cheaper than the ply.

Rough surfaced ply is great for tiling on John

 

[JohnD]

the other advantage of 8x2 sheets is that you (I) can carry them up stairs and through doorways, whereas an 8x4 is pretty unmanageable.