The greatest enemy in the battle between light sleepers and night owls is a squeaky floor, is it not? In an instant your plan to sneak to the kitchen for a midnight snack is foiled by a sudden creaking beneath your foot. Besides being loud and eery, this common wood-floor phenomenon is indisputably annoying. So, let’s go over a few ways to eradicate the issue before someone ends up taking a hatchet to our noisy foe.
Now, squeaking in your floors is most often caused by the expanding or shrinking of the wood. This happens when the humidity in your home, at least where the hardwood floors reside, changes. So, the FIRST TIP you need to remember is to regulate the humidity levels in your home. Invest in a dehumidifier to use when the air feels a little extra clammy, and use your air conditioning and/or a humidifier to make sure your house doesn’t dry your floor up. You can use a moisture meter to ensure that your levels remain the same over time.
TIP NUMBER TWO is a quick fix for floors that insist on rubbing together to create that creak. All you have to do is break up the friction. How? Head on down to your local pharmacy or grocery store and pick up some baby powder. No joke. If you sprinkle some of the stuff over the space between the squeaky planks and rub it in until it’s filtered downward, that exasperating sound will be a thing of the past.
Now that the easy stuff is out of the way, we have to get down to the tough business. For our FINAL THURSDAY TIP, we are here to tell you that there may come a time for your squeaky floorboards to be bolted down. If you decide to do this from the top of your floor, you will have to use finishing nails or wood screws. When using the latter, be sure to drill pilot holes into the plank before adding the screw.
You have the option to work from underneath the floor as well if you have the luxury of access to it. Place something heavy onto the floor’s surface to anchor the boards into place, and then send wood screws through the subfloor up into the offending planks. Tighten them. Finish it off by squeezing wood glue into the crack between the floorboards.
There you have it. Three effective ways to prevent or rid yourself of a squeaking floor. Just remember us as you’re eating that piece of leftover cake at twelve thirty in the morning while your roommate is enjoying the serenity of uninterrupted slumber. Sweet dreams, friends. We’ll see you Tuesday!