My kitchen floor squeaks. The basement is unfinished, so I’ve been able to stand on a stepladder down there and feel the kitchen subfloor moving up and down relative to the joist when my wife walks on the kitchen floor. IOW, I know exactly where/what the problem is.
The question is how to fix it.
The kitchen floor is covered with linoleum, so I don’t think there’s anything I can do from above. But what can I do from below? Is there any kind of tool/nozzle for pumping construction adhesive into the gap between the subfloor and the joist? Anything else?
Just depends on the kind of flooring. I assume standard types of sub-flooring under the linoleum. Flexing of the floor is common in kitchens. Often a problem right in front of the sink or stove where people frequently stand, Water can leak, splash, and otherwise make it’s way under the flooring. Working from below is mentioned and a good idea, otherwise you’ll have to remove the flooring, but sometimes you’ll have no choice.
First, is the joist flexing? They will given enough flexes from people walking over it all the time. The joist might have a structural issue, or might have been installed wrong with the crown on the bottom. If it is simply a gap that needs filling use wooden shims to even it up and level it. Get cedar shims, they’re probably sold at your Home Despot as low grade cedar shingles, although a 100 sq. ft. bundle of them may cost $30-$40 these days, but they should have smaller packs for less. And they’re extremely useful in many ways if you have leftovers. It’s easy to cut and break pieces off that you can wedge in between the joist and flooring. They are cut paper thin at the end so you’ll find pieces you can fill the gaps with. You might want to use a little glue to hold them in place if you’re not going to nail them in from above. I wouldn’t advise caulk or construction adhesive or anything else less solid just for filling the gap, it may not last and certainly won’t hold up to any continued flexing.
Even if you are working from above you’ll need to take care of a real gap between the floor and the joist. You can tighten up a flooring using ring shank nails or screws to hold it down solid to the joist, but that will just be a problem if the floor starts to bow down in that spot…
The brackets shown above are a good idea, assuming you have filled any gap first. If there’s no gap that is a good under the floor solution. But you could nail or screw a second board into the joist that is level to the floor. And with any attempt working under the floor, use some boards long enough to prop up the floor from underneath until it’s level up on top. No use tightening the floor up with a big dip in the middle of it.
The concern I had was how to get the construction adhesive to flow into the gap between the joist and subfloor, rather than just making a big ball of goo on the side of the joist. The smaller the gap, the bigger the challenge. A small dot of adhesive between the joist and the subfloor won’t be effective - you’d need a large contact area to be glued together.
The Squeak Relief brackets look pretty good; thanks for the link.
I’ll second these and note that I’ve had luck with two blocks of wood. Screw them together in an “L” and attach to the joist, then screw up from the bottom and pull the floor tight. Although, for the price I might just buy those if I have to do it again.
