Flooring questions?

Question

Just bought a three bed detached house with 3 bathrooms after selling my 1 bed house, and i plan to do everything including all the bathrooms, kitchen apart from fitting the cooker, so i will be on here loads of times,i just have a couple of questions.

1) Squeeky floorboards up stairs, there sheets not planks, i thought what i will do is every piece i step on i will rescrew down, will this do it or is it the joist's,

2) I want oak flooring all downstairs, but i heard that if i want real wood i have to replace the old floorboards with the new real wood flooring, which i dont really want to do, I dont want laminated so the other option is engineered wood flooring but can i put this down straight onto the original floorboards

Answer 1

squeaky floorboards are common, and if they are sheets, then you will have chipboard more than likely. Screwing it down more will help, and i have heart that a liberal dusting with talc helps, but have never tried it. If the boards have moved apart, you may need to replace as many as you can.

Engineered oak flooring can be laid on top of normal boards but at 90 degrees to the way they run, but again, it depends on the quality of the original boards.

Answer 2

1. You could also have plywood flooring instead of chipboard. That would make reduction easier. Add screws at the seams where you hear the squeaks, but don't expect long term results, since most of the squeaks from from the edges of the two sheets rubbing against each other.
Since you are doing the entire place, are you removing ceilings below? If so, a quick fix is to add a little glue to shims, drive them in (not too tightly), between joist and underlayment and thus provide a better base for the flooring upstairs. Trim the protruding shims with a hammer and chisel or a utility knife.
2. Depends on your old floorboards and whether you have dips, humps, or whatever. If reasonably level, you can install oak flooring, hopefully you will use tongue in groove, as long as you have good base to do your finish nailing--these are not floating floors. In some cases, you can use sound reducing underlayment under new wood floor installations, and that could help even out some of the imperfections in current flooring. Personally, I would rip out all old flooring and underlayment, install new and make sure it is plywood and not chipboard, for a better looking and lasting long term floor.

Answer 3

Number 1. It could be pipes under the sheets which are causing the squeaking. When the joists are notched out to run the pipes they notch out with just enough room to squeeze the pipes in. So when you walk on the floor the pipes are rubbing against each other and sqeaking.

Number 2. You can put wood flooring on top of wood flooring, But you must consider the problem you would have if you had a water leak under the boards in removing two layers of wood. You would also have to adjust any doors in the room to compensate for the flloor thickness.

Answer 4

It might be your joists. What size are they? If you have 2x10's for example, you can span 16' with douglas fir. 2x8's span 12', 2x6's can span 12' if they are 12" on center. The first spans were for 16" on center.

Find out what your joists are. If you are undersized, then put some solid wood blocking in with screws or ring shank nails.

The sheathing should be attached to the joists with construction adhesive and ring shanked nails or screws. Probably you have no adhesive (thus the squeaks) and smooth nails (more squeaks).

How to remedy this? Sell the house? Screw or ring shank nail the bejesus out of the sheathing.

When you are happy with your subfloor, buy a hardwood floor laying book by don bolinger. Read it. Put down some paper, then your floor.

Downstairs-If the old floor boards are ok, then use them. If they're not ok, make them ok or rip them out. To make them ok, screw or ring shank nail the bejesus out of them as you did upstairs, then lay your new floor at an angle across them, at least 45, if not 90 degrees. A layer of paper will be good here also.

You don't have to tear out if it is stable or you can make it stable. Height problems? A tear out isn't really that bad, then you can fix the subfloor if there are any problems there.

Answer 5

When screwing down the stair treads you will need to know where the fixing points are at the back under the stairs. You can then locate them by putting a hole through the stairs beside the location and then by dead measuring. The fixing points are triangular pieces of wood in the angles. You will know what they are when you see them. When you put the screws in coat the thread with a little silicone grease. They will go in easily and deaden any slight squeak from slight movement. Cannot help with floor boards but my guess is that you will need to take up the old and refit new.
Happy New Year in your new house. It sounds great.

Answer 6

the problems with squeaky floors is that you are liable to do more damage trying to eliminate it ..under all floors are pipes so you have to be very careful ..it pays to take up the floor and locate the pipes ..then you know where to screw ..as for downstairs ..you cant put on top of existing floor as you will stop the floor from breathing and you will have to cut off the bottoms of all doors and you might well have a step some where

Answer 7

you seem to have chipboard panels,these can be easily screwed down,and will normally cure the problem,but if not,you may have to lift the noisy one's and put additional supports on the joist,
As for down stairs you can put the oak flooring down on the original,but across it rather than along it,and remember to leave at least a 10mm space alround to allow for movement,this would be covered by the skirting boards.

Answer 8

There are 2 motives i could lean in the direction of ceramic tile. One, there is a large array of varieties, sizes and textures which will journey your timber floor and scratch your rustic asthetic itch. 2, i love to do a advantageous inlay layout interior the lobby. With somewhat time and persistence, you may create a mini-masterpiece and set the tone for the finished homestead. a real artisan could even evaluate introducing in simple terms somewhat timber interior the inlay. i'm seeing further and extra of this in residences in all fee tiers, because of the fact the fad in the direction of geared up-in artwork constructive factors momentum. Or, slate. it is your place, in spite of everything.

Answer 9

buy some new tongue and groove it,s cheap. floor boards creek in time because they dry out with the heat or because they are so cheap that they have not been kiln dried properly.