I live in a townhouse style condo that is about 20 years old. Within the past year several of my floorboards on the main & upper floors have begun to creak. I had new carpeting installed in December. The floors were doing some creaking prior to this, but seem to be doing more now. Can you help me out?
Kaye,
Thank you for trusting the Guys and for an informative inquiry.
Squeaky floors can become a real distraction and generally get worse over time. They are the result of those boards moving against each other, the floor frame and/of the actual fasteners originally intended to hold them. This is one of the reasons good contractors today use heavy duty commercial glues when fastening the floors so that movement can, hopefully, be eliminated.
If you have access to the underside of the floors from the basement, repairs can generally be accomplished permanently without huge costs.
Squeaks in the floor under carpet on second-story floors can often be repaired, but take a little more expertise and care with carpets.
When they are widely pronounced in such a situation, it is sometimes most expeditious to have the carpets rolled back and re-screw all the sub floors down before re-stretching the carpet back in place.
Try to isolate those upper floor squeaks that are most bothersome to determine how many you are experiencing. Then call Ace at 734-236-1222 and discuss the issue with him.
Hopefully you can soon be back to living in relative quiet as you glide across your floors.
Stay in touch with us and tell everyone you know to listen to the Inside Outside Guys!
Blessings and stay well,
The Guys