While a squeaky floor may be good for alerting you of missed curfews, they rarely have any upsides. In fact, a sneaky floor can be quite annoying if not taken care of properly. Squeaky floors often occur after a home settles or your flooring has been exposed to humidity changes and is susceptible to growing and shrinking. As you walk across your floors, the planks rub together and slide against nail shafts producing an obnoxious noise. Another reason your floors are squeaking may be because your subflooring is loose. The good news is that it is fairly simple to silence any squeak in a matter of minutes if you know these tricks:
Repairs From Below
If your floor is above a crawl space or a basement, going below to make the repairs is easy. Begin by having someone walk across the floor above. Pinpoint the exact spot the floor is squeaking and gently tap a thin wood shim coated in carpenter's glue in the space between the joist and subfloor. You want to fill the gap and remove any give the floor might have.
Repairs On The Surface
The trick here is silencing the floors without damaging the finished flooring. After locating the squeaky spot, bore a 3/32 in pilot hole through your flooring. Attach a depth-control fixture over the pivot hole and drive the screw down until it bottoms out. Next, fill the pilot hole with tinted wood putty. After it dries, lightly sand the putty off. Another option that has worked for some is to lubricate your floorboards by sweeping talcum powder between boards.
