How to Fix a Squeaky Wood Floor Under the Carpet
Squeaky floorboards are irritating, and to fix them, it's necessary to find the joists they're attached to. If you have bare wood floors, you can see the joist without any trouble. Floors with carpeting provide more of a challenge. You can rip the carpeting up to find the joist, but most carpeting is tacked down along the baseboards and it is a difficult job. Make the job easier with a special kit that comes with a tripod, special breakaway screws and a floor joist finder. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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1
Walk over the floor to locate the squeaky board. Hit the carpet with your hammer, listening for a dull thud sound. This sound indicates the floor joist below. The other sections of the floor will sound hollow, and you don't want to drill there.
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2
Attach the joist-finding screw bit that comes with your kit into your drill. This screw has a few threads at the bottom of the bit to drill through the wood, while the rest of the drill bit is smooth. Drill in the area where you heard the dull thud sound, drilling down about 2 inches. Shut your drill off and then try to move the drill up and down. If the drill bit moves up and down, you did not find the joist. Move over a few inches and drill through the floor again. Keep doing this until you find the joist. To remove your drill, reverse the direction and back the drill bit out.
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3
Measure 16 inches over from where your drill found the joist. Drill into the floor again with the joist-finding screw bit to ensure you're in the right area.
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4
Place the special tripod that came with your kit over the floor joist and push the pointed legs down into the carpet. This tripod only allows the drill to insert the special screws to a certain depth.
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5
Insert the screw head into your drill and insert the pointy end of the screw into the tripod's hole in the center in the tripod.
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6
Place your feet against the tripod and power the screw into the floor with your drill until it stops. Your screw will not be flush with the carpet, the head will stick out. Find the joist on the other side of the room, following the direction of your squeaky floorboard. This will be straight across the floor.
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7
Repeat steps 1 through 6.
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8
Attach one end of a string to the screw head at one end of the room and tie the other end of the string to the other screw and pull the string taut. This shows you where the floor joists are under the carpet.
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9
Place the tripod along the string line so the string is going through the center of the screw hole. Drive in screws, spacing them 8 inches apart.
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10
Remove the tripod and turn it on its side. Find the recessed area or the screw gripper that allows you to insert the head of the screw into that area. Rock the tripod back and forth, snapping the screw off flush with the floorboards below. Repeat this with each screw.
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