Subfloor Repair

You may never consider your home's subfloor — until it begins squeaking or you have to replace the covering over it. This Fix-It Guide on subfloor repair tells how a subfloor works, what often goes wrong, how to place a subfloor trouble, and what parts and tools you volition need to fix it. Information technology then gives instructions for how to repair a squeaky floor from below and from above. See the Rug Fix-Information technology Guide, the Resilient Floor Prepare-Information technology Guide, and the Wood Flooring Fix-It Guide for rug repair, resilient flooring repair, and wood flooring repair.

How Does a Subfloor Piece of work?

A subfloor is a flooring laid on top of the floor joists, to which a finished, decorative flooring is fastened. If your home's floor is of poured concrete, that's the subfloor. Plywood or planks too provide a solid platform to which tile, vinyl, hardwood, rug, etc. tin can be fastened with nails or adhesives. To concur the finish flooring, the subfloor must be stable, relatively shine, and waterproof.

What Can Go Wrong with a Subfloor?

The about common problem with a wood subfloor is annoying squeaks when someone walks across the floor. Squeaks occur when pieces of wood rub together. Physical subfloors don't have this problem, only they can become water damaged and scissure.

How Can I Identify a Subfloor Trouble?

  • If a wood subfloor squeaks, first you must effort to locate the squeak. If the flooring joists can exist seen from beneath the flooring (as from a basement or crawl space), watch from below while someone walks across the floor to a higher place. You lot may spot move between joists and subfloor, or loose bridging between joists. Mark the location with chalk or another marker so you can notice it again when you've gathered the needed tools and materials.
  • If you lot tin can go at the squeak from below through a basement or crawlspace, you lot can repair it with an angle fe, screws, a cleat, or a shim (run across beneath).

Fix-It Tip

Wish you could lubricate a squeaky floor? Maybe y'all tin! Forest flooring tin can be "lubricated" with talcum pulverization. Spread the powder over the boards in the problem expanse and work it in between the boards using your hand or a small-scale brush. And so walk around the area to work the pulverisation in. Repeat a few times and you may remove the squeak–without having to bulldoze a nail.

  • If the squeaky subfloor is below a woods floor and in that location is no access to the subfloor from below, you can refasten the loose section of subfloor to the nearest joist through the finish floor (see below).
  • If the squeaky subfloor is beneath tile, vinyl, or carpet and there is no access from beneath, you can endeavour to reset the loose boards from above (meet beneath).
  • If the subfloor is concrete and shows damage, you volition need to remove the flooring textile and use a concrete patch product (available at hardware stores) to fix it, following the manufacturer'due south instructions (see the Concrete Fix-It Guide).

What Do I Need for Subfloor Repair?

Replacement parts are available at edifice material retailers, hardware stores, and domicile centers. The tools y'all will need to fix a damaged subfloor include these:

  • Hammer
  • Screwdrivers
  • Drill
  • Bending iron
  • Screws
  • Nails and washers
  • Cleats and wood blocks

What Are the Steps to Subfloor Repair?

Subfloor Repair

You lot can fasten loose subflooring from underneath using screws.

Repair a squeaky floor from below with an bending atomic number 26:

  1. Find and marker the location of the squeak from below the subfloor.
  2. Install an angle iron on the joist so the top of it is about 1/iv inch below the top of the joist.
  3. Firmly spiral the angle fe into the subfloor to pull it downwards onto the joist.

Circumspection!

Brand certain that the screws installed in the subfloor from below are not longer than the subfloor and flooring is thick or they will come through the flooring!

Repair a squeaky floor from below using screws:

  1. Drill holes through the subfloor slightly smaller than the screw threads.
  2. Install washers and wood screws 1/4 inch shorter than the full floor thickness.

Repair a squeaky floor from below using a cleat:

  1. Mountain a cleat against a joist nether the loose boards.
  2. Prop and tap so the cleat is snug confronting the subfloor.
  3. Nail to the joist.

Repair a squeaky floor from higher up (wood floors):

  1. Apply a stud finder to locate the joist.
  2. Drill pairs of airplane pilot holes angled toward each other
  3. Drive three-inch ring-shank nails or screws through the flooring, the subfloor, and into joist.
  4. Set the nailheads or countersink the screws, and cover them with wood putty that matches the color of the boards.

Repair a squeaky flooring from above (not recommended for ceramic or other hard tile that may suspension):

  1. Locate and mark the location of the squeak.
  2. Using a hammer and a block of scrap wood as a buffer, pound the floor firmly over the squeaky boards in the expanse around the squeak to force loose nails back into place.