Dear Rob:
I love my wood floors, but I have a couple of really annoying squeaky spots that I’d really like to get rid of. What should I do if I have squeaky hardwood floors?
Shannon from Colorado
Dear Shannon:
Squeaks in wood floors can be very irritating. While there is no miracle cure for floor squeaks, there are a couple of things you can do to try to eliminate them.
If your squeaks are coming from the hardwood flooring itself, the cause is rubbing between the tongue and groove of the wood planks. If this is the case, one easy solution to try is using graphite powder to lubricate the rubbing boards. Just sprinkle a little bit of the graphite powder in the grooves between the boards. Then walk across them to cause the boards to flex and squeak. This will allow the graphite to settle down in the cracks. Then vacuum up the excess powder.
If graphite powder doesn’t do the trick after a couple of applications. There is a lot of movement in the boards. You can drive flooring nails or screws at a slight angle through the boards into the subfloor to reduce movement. You can then fill the nail holes with a wood putty that matches your floor. This isn’t an ideal solution. But it’s a lot easier than ripping up the entire floor if you are happy with the rest of it.
If you have access to the underside of your floor, you can drive screws at an angle, up through the floor joists into the subfloor to reduce up and down movement in the subfloor itself. This will help eliminate squeaks caused by the subfloor moving up and down on the nails originally used to install it.
I hope these tips help solve your squeaky floor problems!
-Rob
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