Creaks and
similar noises are always
caused by movement of the floor, movement of the subfloor, or a combination of
both, so the first task before installation even begins is to make sure that
the subfloor is strong enough and doesn’t ‘give’ or 'flex' too much when walked upon.
If it does ‘give’ too much, then it needs to be reinforced and strengthened by adding extra supporting struts or even full joists beneath, or maybe adding another surface layer of plywood. The plain fact is that if the problem isn’t solved and fixed at this stage, your finished floor will always have further problems because no matter how good a quality your oak flooring is, it will only ever be as good as the subfloor beneath.
If the subfloor wasn’t tested and proven as being suitable, and now you have a squeaky floor, then you need to firstly walk across the floor and find the areas where the problems are.
Make a full inspection of the floor areas where the problem is apparent (above and below if possible) and assess what the cause of the problem is.
If it’s a loose or under-strength subfloor, then this can sometimes be fixed from below by either filling any voids between subfloor and joists, or by strengthening and ‘beefing up’ the joists.
If it’s determined that the squeaks and creaks are caused by the actual flooring being loose above the subfloor, then you can either fix it down from above by screwing it into counter-sunk holes or better still, screwing up from beneath if possible to avoid any remedial work that's necessary to ‘patch up’ and cover the screw holes left in the surface of the floor.
The biggest challenges to solve with loose floor coverings that creak are when the flooring is installed above a concrete subfloor because there’s obviously no access from below to sort the problems out, and everything has to be done from above on the actual surface of the floor, which can affect its appearance.
If the flooring has been installed using the floating method then there’s not much you can do other than remove the flooring and start again, hopefully not damaging the edges of the boards too much where they’ve been glued together.
When it has been removed, the subfloor should be assessed (maybe it isn’t flat and level, which is allowing the flooring above to move under load) and the flooring should be fixed somehow to the subfloor to avoid the problems occurring again (the subfloor needs to be flat and level for good adhesion).
If the flooring has been glued down to the subfloor already, then that’s another matter completely… loose flooring then means that either the adhesive hasn’t been applied correctly or sufficiently, or it has pulled away from either the flooring or the subfloor (usually it’s the subfloor; not being flat and level enough or simply not strong enough to adhere to the adhesive sufficiently).
Some fitters claim that this can be ‘fixed’ by drilling holes into the flooring and forcing more adhesive through them and into the void between flooring and subfloor to bond both together again but in reality, not only does this virtually ruin the appearance of the floor but if it’s the subfloor that’s failing, this just isn’t going to work. The flooring will have to be ripped up and re-installed, costing everyone involved time, effort and money.
Creaks and squeaks can also be caused when a nailed down floor isn’t fixed sufficiently by either using nails that are too short, or simply not enough nails being used (NB: barbed cleats are always better than standard nails because they grip the subfloor and won't work loose over time).
This can be remedied by drilling and screwing (or nailing) into counter-sunk holes, and those holes are then filled, sanded and re-finished… but this is one hell of a lot of work that should never be necessary if the floor is fitted correctly in the first instance.
You never want to rip up a nailed down floor with an aim of using it again because of the damage that can be caused to the edges of the boards where they've been nailed. If the flooring has been screwed down initially, then this is a simple but time-consuming process to increase the number of fixings used.
The plain and simple fact that we want to emphasise here by highlighting all of the above… is that proper assessment of the site and sufficient preparation of the subfloor and the flooring, are all vital components to a reliable and effective floor installation project.
If you try to cut corners in an effort to save money when installing an oak floor, it will invariably end up costing you more money and time in the long run.
Always remember one of our favourite sayings; “when installing a new oak floor, you want to do it once not twice”.
