LESLIE: Jane in New Jersey’s next, who finds The Money Pit on WCTC. And you’ve got a question about squeaky floors. How can we help?
JANE: The last time I talked to you guys, you said something about a pilot hole and a spinner . And I have no idea what that …
TOM: Ah yes, a pilot hole and a nail spinner. Remind me – were we talking about a hardwood floor that has a squeak?
LESLIE: Or carpeting?
JANE: Yes, they’re old floors.
TOM: Old floors, OK.
JANE: They’re about 42 years old.
TOM: Alright, so if it’s a hardwood floor, basically what you – what you have to do is you have to nail through the floor and into the floor joist below. And the nail spinner, what that is, is a little product that’s made by Vermont America and it should be available in any home center in the hardware section. Or, if you don’t want to buy a nail spinner, you can simply take a #10 finish nail and use it as a drill bit and basically use it to sort of drill through the floor where you’re going to insert the nail. The reason you have to create a pilot hole is because you can’t simply nail through the hardwood floor because the nail’s going to bend. The wood is just too strong for that. So …
LESLIE: Well, and also you don’t want any of the wood to crack or split and having a pilot hole helps to guide things properly so it doesn’t do that.
TOM: Yeah, and the reason I like to use the nail spinner is because it holds the nail and uses the drill to kind of spin it in. It sort of separates the fibers as opposed to cutting them, which is what a drill bit would do.
LESLIE: Right.
TOM: So if you can’t find that, a little trick of the trade is just to take a finish nail; stick it in the end of the chuck of the drill; chuck it up; and then use that finish nail as the drill bit without the nail spinner. Once you get it close, loosen up the chuck, pull the drill away and the nail will stay put. And if you find (audio gap) in the floor joisting the stud finder and put in two or three nails and you want to put them in, Jane, on a slight angle, then that will secure that floor area down and the squeak will go away.
Jane, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Cannot find a nail spinner anywhere.
Hey Dan, I see what you mean. Sad, but they may not make it any more. Can’t imagine why — such a great accessory. Anyway, you can do this the hard way by using the finish nail as the drill bit. You may need to cut off the head for the shorter nails but it’ll work just the same – just take a lot longer.