Warped,squeaky wood floor-radiant heat

oldhouse · 02-16-2009, 07:30 PM

I have a 100 year old farm house I have ben remodeling. I installed staple up radiant heat in an an upstairs MB. The floors are the original 1*6 pine T&G flooring over joists at 16 inch centers. This is the second winter for this system. The flooring has a considerable crown and it squeaks just about everywhere you walk on it. The obvious solution is tear out the floor and start over but the downstairs area is completely refinished and I don't want to tear out that ceiling to. My floor refinish guy says the crowing isn't a problem for him to deal with but the squeaking is driving me crazy. I'm not opposed to surface nailing if I thought it would work or how long it would last. I heard something about injecting an adhesive but not really familiar on how that would work.The remainder of the upstairs has the same flooring which has been refinished with just an ocassional creak one would expect in an old house. HELP

glennjanie · 02-16-2009, 08:17 PM

Welcome OldHouse:
A floor installed 100 years ago doesn't have cement coated nails or screws in it. The old fashioned shiny nails are terrible about backing out and causing sqreaks. I'm thinking you could use one stainless steel screw in the center of each board on each joist to take care of the crowning and the creaking. You could even countersink the screws a bit and use a wood plug over them to hide the head.
The adhesive thing would help movement between boards causing the creaks but it is very tedious and I don't think you will need it with the new screws.
Glenn

GreenIsGood · 02-17-2009, 10:29 AM

Yep - screws are best for squeaky wooden floors. My dad always used them when putting in a subfloor. They do work.