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Re: Repairing Squeaky Sub floor

From: tate16t@yahoo.com
Category: Flooring
Remote Name: 69.117.200.170
Date: 01 Jul 2006
Time: 05:52 PM

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Question: One of my upstairs bedrooms has a squeaky sub floor which has been this way since I purchased the home. I decided to investigate this. I pulled up the carpet and found that the sub floor is particleboard. There are areas where the particleboard meets where the squeaking appears to come from. Is there some sort of glue I can put into the seams to stop this?

Builders Websource® Answer: When you say the sub floor is particleboard, do you mean OSB (Oriented Strand Board)? To provide a smooth foundation for carpeting or vinyl flooring, sometimes a thin layer of particleboard is used as an underlayment over the base plywood or OSB sub floor, so this may be what you're seeing. If the sub floor is truly particle board, you have a different problem since particleboard is not the same as structural plywood or OSB, and it should not be used alone as a sub floor.

Squeaking floors are almost always caused by differential movement between the floor joist, the sub floor, and the fasteners holding the two together (typically nails). As the wood dries, the fasteners can loosen slightly, creating a small gap. For this reason, a better construction practice is to glue and screw the sub floor to the joists which provides a more secure assembly. At the very least, ring-shanked nails can help to prevent squeaking. If your carpeting underlayment is particleboard, sometimes expansion along the edges can cause two pieces to bind together, causing a squeak. If the location of the squeak is isolated to just a handful of areas, you might try locating the offending nails or fasteners. You may be able to drive a few deck screws (at least 1-1/2" or longer) through the top of the underlayment into the floor joist. You generally do not want to add glue to the seams as this could cause buckling along the edges as the underlayment tries to expand and contract during the seasons. There should always be about a 1/8" gap between adjacent panels of underlayment to allow for expansion and contraction.

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