Squeaking Floors Under Tiles

To address squeaks in the top floorboards skip to the next method.

Squeaking floors under tiles. Given the hassles of fixing noisy floors under carpet hardwood vinyl or tile there is one thing you can do to stop squeaks before they happen. Finding the squeak can be difficult but if the squeaking floor is open from below you re in luck. The head of the. Tile floors squeak wherever a gap develops between the subfloor and the supporting joist beneath it.

Floor squeaks are caused by wood rubbing against a nail other wood or even ductwork and piping. If the floorboards under the carpet squeak drive a wallboard screw all the way through the carpet and pad into the floor joist countersinking the screw head into the subfloor. All squeaky boards under tile linoleum and other flooring surfaces will need to be fixed from under either in the crawl space or the basement. Traditional hardwood strip flooring is the most susceptible to developing a case of the squeaks but all types of flooring can make annoying noises.

The good news is that it s easy to silence nearly any squeak in a matter of minutes if you know a few tricks. It s also common on hardwood floors that the top floor itself will squeak. If all you want to do for the present is to fix the squeak and if you can get underneath the subfloor from below here s the fix drill a series of small holes in the ceiling below the subfloor and using an dollar store mustard bottle or you can use a ketchup bottle if your taste goes there squirt baby powder up into the space hitting the subfloor above in as many places as you can. You can fix the subfloor from below or pull up a tile or a few to fix the squeak from above.

First find the source of the squeak. Floors and stairs squeak when wooden floorboards or structural elements rub against each other when the bridging between joists flexes under traffic or when floorboards have not been properly nailed to the subfloor. You ll have several options to stop it. Answer answer the fact that there is a squeak under the tile suggests that the wood underlayment subfloor is moving to some degree.

If you are building a new home or when replacing flooring in an old home make sure to screw down the entire subfloor using 2 1 2 to 3 case hardened drywall screws. Normally this is avoided if when the wood subfloor underlayment is installed it is glued and screwed so there isn t any movement or chance for there. I doubt that it is the tile assembly itself moving independent of the floor but that would have to be verified. Learning how to fix squeaky floors is simply a matter of determining which area the problem is coming from.

Here we ll show you how to fix a squeaky floor when working below the floor and. Pulling up tiles is a difficult and risky option that could result in damage to surrounding tiles.