Squeaky floors due to bad plumbing
I’ve spent a few days trying to sort out a problem in my property which is squeaky flooring. It’s been a real problem when trying to settle our 14 month old. I would finally after an hour of trying get her to fall asleep and as I go to leave the room the floorboards make a massive noise and I have to start all over again trying to put her down.
Now you would think this is just a simple task bang a couple nails in and that will solve it. But DON’T DO THAT…
I went to carry out a job for a customer who had really squeaky floorboards and they were even bowing in places, rather than just nail the boards down I took them up to see what was happening and in the end I’m glad I did.
Whoever had laid the pipe for the heating system decided to lay 6 pipes side beside, a few of them being 22mm the whole length of the room and these where just notched in top of the floor joist so a fixing was not possible.
When the carpenters came in to lay the floor these boards where just left loose with about 3 really bad fixings over a 4m span needless to say they move squeaked the whole chi -bang.
It’s always going to be hard to really sort this type of floor out without taking it all up and starting again, but in this case I was able to take out that particular section and as it was being carpeted install different size boards completely spanning over the said pipe work curing the problem.
But going back to my problem floor it started when I had the boiler changed from the old gravity fed system to a combi-boiler. As it was just a boiler change all the existing pipework stayed in-situ and just the bits around the boiler changed now it’s a known problem for the old pipework to weep as its gone from minimal pressure to a sealed system which maintains 2 bar of water pressure.
I have never seen it happen before my house but it happened to me and when I noticed the drips coming through the ceiling I took immediate action, I cut up the chipboard flooring first floor, with my multi tool(see tool reviews) I did it all properly marked on the blade the depth of the board and started cutting, it went straight through the pipe.
The drip then became a gush, before I could get the rest of the board up and access the pipe the contents of my central heating system was everywhere.
So it happens to the best of us believe me.
When I had cleared up I took stock of the situation and its was plain to see what happened apart from where I had cut the pipe open, the original plumber when the house was built laid a 15mm copper pipe on top of the supporting RSJ with no packing so over the years with foot traffic in that area being particularly high the pipe had become flattened and by the looks of it had been leaking for a long time before I had the property. The final straw was asking it to take 2 bar of water pressure. I cut out the damaged section of pipe work but unfortunately couldn’t move it anywhere else so it had to take the same route the only difference being that I packed either side of the pipe meaning the floor boards would not rest on it at all.
After an eventful day the boards where put back, more laid back and left for 12 months before I finally got around to sorting the floor out properly.
The boards where laid with chipboard flooring sheets so I had to replace it in sections but to do this I would need to cut them back to the joists to cut new boards in. It was easier said than done as the joist either side where in the other rooms so instead I had to make up new timber work to fit the new boards on.
The best way to do this is to fit noggins in between the existing joists, this takes the bulk of the weight then if you want to be able to get a few more fixings in then I fit a batten to the underside of the existing floor that you’re going up against then you have a fixing pint for your new floor and this helps prevent any sponginess..
Finally now that the new carpet has gone down its all looking good, what is always a good idea though is mark the location of the pipe on the floor as you are laying the new flooring down this will hopefully prevent and occurrence of what happened to me.
So morale of the storey if you have a squeak don’t go guns blazing and use that Makita impact driver to drive a screw in as you don’t know what surprises are waiting for you under the floorboards.