The popularity of using wood as a floor covering is due to its characteristics and consumer properties. Wooden floors are environmentally friendly and do not emit harmful substances during operation. However, over time, the boards dry out in the apartment, and when walking on them, they begin to make various sounds. What to do if the wooden floor creaks? First, you should determine the possible causes of this phenomenon, and then find an effective way to eliminate it.
Reasons for the appearance of a creak
There may be several answers to the question why the floors creak. First of all, due to the deformation of the material during drying. If the humidity of the boards used for flooring was more than optimal and exceeded 12%, then over time their warping is inevitable. The reasons for the appearance of a creak can also be attributed to:
- Weakening of structural rigidity. As a result of free fit, the floor structure elements begin to move relative to each other.
- Damage by fungus and rot. They appear in rooms with high humidity and contribute to the deformation of the material, forming cracks and gaps.
- Reducing the gap between walls and boards. The friction of structural elements against each other is enough for a creak to appear.
- Reducing the strength of the joints. The fasteners are gradually loosened and the tightness of the contraction of individual wooden parts is reduced.
In addition, the reasons for the appearance of a creak may be errors made during the installation of the floor. The most common among them:
- the choice of boards, the thickness of which does not correspond to certain operating conditions;
- incorrect installation of the log and too large a distance between the supporting beams.
Depending on the reason, the algorithm of actions necessary to get rid of the squeak is also selected.
Tools and fixtures
To bring the wooden floor in the apartment into proper shape and eliminate the creak, you will need various tools, the exact list of which is determined by the type of repair work. The minimum set should include:
- nail puller, which is used to open the floor;
- hacksaw for cutting linings for boards;
- a hammer, necessary to strengthen the fixation of individual elements with nails;
- an ax with which you can adjust the bars or wedges to the desired size;
- a marker or chalk for marking places where additional fastening or other types of work need to be done;
- drill for making holes.
In addition, you may need self-tapping screws, dry wood bars, glue, cement, or a mixture for plastering.
Methods for eliminating creaking
The most time-consuming and effective way is to completely rebuild the wooden floor in the apartment. It is used for numerous coating defects that cannot be eliminated by local work. In this case, you can check the condition of all the logs and boards and replace the damaged elements with new ones. The bulkhead of the floor on a concrete base is performed as follows:
- Fix the joists to the concrete slab. To do this, use a drill with a drill for wood and a puncher, with which holes are made in the base and lags.
- Using a hammer, drive the anchor into the hole and burst it.
- Lay the floorboard, cutting with a hacksaw or electric jigsaw so that it does not touch the wall after fixing.
- The floorboards are fixed on the logs, using self-tapping screws and sinking the hats to the floor level.
It is undesirable to use nails for fastening boards, because over time they can cause creaking.
A simpler option is to get rid of the creak without dismantling the floor. It can also be used for parquet, and for covering from boards.
Wooden floor
If extraneous sounds appear due to weak fastening of the boards and there are few deformed areas, then wooden wedges are used. They are driven between the floorboards to eliminate friction and the creak disappears.
With a large area of damage, the boards are fixed with self-tapping screws, doing the following:
- identify creaking areas and mark them with chalk;
- find the location of the log, for which they are guided by the nails or remove the extreme boards;
- in steps of no more than 15 cm, holes are drilled in the floorboards, which are 1-2 mm smaller than the diameter of the self-tapping screws;
- using a drill with a nozzle or a screwdriver, screw the boards to the logs, slightly sinking the hats.
What to do if the creak appeared due to poor lag fixation? In this case, they are fixed with special metal anchors. This method is effective, but laborious and is used when laying a coating over a concrete slab. The minimum distance between individual anchors must not exceed 1 m.
Advice! A high power drill or hammer drill will simplify the work. Using special equipment, it is possible to drill through holes through floorboards and logs in concrete without significant effort.
Parquet
A particular variant of wooden floors is parquet, which is also prone to creaking. Since such a coating consists of individual elements, the repair is carried out pointwise. What to do to eliminate the squeak?
First, its source is determined and deformed areas are noted. Then, using a drill, cement and a large volume syringe without a needle, perform the following operations:
- carefully drill a hole in the middle of the creaking bar;
- make a cement mortar resembling milk in consistency;
- pour the resulting mixture into a syringe and check how it is squeezed out;
- too thick a mixture is diluted with water, and cement is added to the liquid;
- insert the syringe into the prepared hole and pour the solution in small doses, pausing in the work to release air;
- pour the mixture until the hole is filled.
At the end, you need to wait for the solution to solidify, and then make sure that there is no creaking. To make the place of repair work invisible, the hole is sealed with mastic or special wood putty and the surface is polished.
In addition to cement mortar, polyurethane adhesive can be used to fix deformed planks.
In some cases, foam is used to fill the space under the damaged planks and reinforce the base, but this method can only serve as a temporary measure.
Advice! No need to get rid of all the creaking areas at once. After checking the elimination technology on one bar, you can start working on the following elements. If the creak does not disappear, then you will need to completely re-lay the parquet.
