creaking stairs??

Question

does anyone know how to stop creaking stairs?the house is about 15 years old and when we feed the baby we try to come down them quietly but its impossible please help??

Answer 1

when a staircase is made ..wedges glued to a groove in the underside of the tread ..on each string (side)..as time goes by these wedges lose their grip and tightness and the stairs begin to creak ..most stairs have the underside covered in plasterboard (fire protection)..so you would have to remove and replace this boarding ..normally you can re glue or just knock these wedges in ..there are all so blocks between the tread and risers (triangular)..some times it pays to fix a screw to these to keep them together

Answer 2

The problem is due to timber shrinkage. There are two ways to approach this. From below the stairs but I suspect the underside of the stairs are boarded over.
So from the top it is.
Remove the stair carpet.
If you look at the areas where the tread and riser meet the stair string. You should see gaps.
Some of the creaking is caused by movement here
You need to cut wooden wedges and tap them in to the gap to take up the space. Place 3 per tread spaced equally. **Note the depth of the space will only be 12mm.
If this works problem solved.
If not the movement is between the riser and tread.
All you can do here is skew some screws in because the right way to sort this is from the underside.
I have had some success doing this.
If you think you want to deal with the underside ask me and ill tell you how.

Hope this helps.
But if you were just after a crap answer buy some ear defenders for the baby

Answer 3

An old joiner who was doing some repair work in my house told me that the best way to stop squeaking floorboards or stairs was to sprinkle talcum powder down the cracks. I tried it and it works beautifully. Baby talcum powder would do fine!

Answer 4

Not enough info for a good answer, are they covered in carpet? nicely stained wood? is the underside accessable? The easiest would be to add screws through the tread into the riser (support) Pre-drill through the tread only and use a drywall type screw at least 1" longer than the tread thickness. If the underside is accessable and the top side is finished or covered with carpet you could toe nail in screws through the corner of the riser support and into the tread, very critical to watch the screw length, you don't want a screw sticking up through the top side.

Answer 5

try sprinkling talcum powder between the joins in the stairs, this also works with creaking floorboards

Answer 6

Put talc between the boards until it stops creaking

Answer 7

Sounds like arthritis to me. Try glucosamine and chondroitin.