LESLIE: Adele in New Jersey is on the line with a flooring question. How can we help you today?
ADELE: We just had new carpeting installed in our living room/dining room and we’re having the balance of the house done in about a week-and-a-half. We are now finding, when you walk through the living room and dining room area, we are getting a few squeaks in the floor in walking.
Now, whether that has anything to do with our subfloor – the house is approximately only 28 years old. We bought it new when it was built. Now, do you think it might be a problem with the subflooring? We do have a crawlspace.
TOM: So, underneath the carpet, what is the subfloor? Is it plywood?
ADELE: Yes.
TOM: OK. So, you have a good opportunity now. Not for the rooms that you’ve already carpeted but for the ones you’re about to carpet. When you take up the old carpet, you need to go through and re-nail or screw the subfloor down to the floor joist to stop the squeaking. Because those boards loosen up and as you step on them, they’ll – they move back and forth and that’s the squeak.
So what I would like to see your contractor do is pull the carpet up and then take some drywall screws – these case-hardened steel screws that are sold everywhere today – and physically screw the plywood down to the floor joist. You put a screw in – about four screws across the width of the plywood on every single floor joist. You just go from one end to the other. They’re driven in with a drill, so it’s a very easy job to do. And that will really tighten up that floor and reduce the movement dramatically and that will prevent, if not eliminate, squeaks under that carpet.
ADELE: Yes. Oh, that sounds terrific.
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