I live in a basement rancher w/finished downstairs, however, my floors upstairs have squeaky spots throughout. The house is about 28 yrs old and I want to begin doing some remodeling such as wood floors, new bathtub, new kitchen flooring, etc. But first I need to know what kind of expense I'm looking at to get rid of the squeaky floors.
Martin ~ Knoxville, Tennessee
You have options here. You can tear up all the sub floor in the squeak zones and replace it with new plywood or OSB that is glued and screwed down. This sounds daunting, but it shouldn't be to bad. Since the floors are squeaking the sub floor was probably installed without glue and fastened with nails making for a relatively easy removal. Another option is to liberally re-fasten the existing sub floor with screws.
If the squeaking is a result of wood joists rubbing inside joist hangers you will need to get some glue into the hangers to stop the squeaking. You will have to remove the ceiling below or the floor above to do this. Sometimes the sub floor is a series of 1x tongue and groove boards, the same options also apply here. The expense here depends at what level you plan to attack this issue and weather you plan to hire a contractor or do the work yourself. I think you would be at about $4-5 a square foot to replace your sub floor.
