I just moved into a new house and I'm dealing with a frustrating issue—there's a large area of the floor that creaks and squeaks, especially against one wall. It sounds like the floor is rubbing and buckling there. We replaced the carpets, and I thought driving screws into the joists helped a bit, but now that the new carpet is in, the creaking is worse. On one side of the living room wall, it's completely quiet, but in the master bedroom, you can hear the creaking almost the whole length of the wall. Does anyone have any tips to fix this? I've tried some things, but nothing seems to work!
1 Answer
It sounds like the wall might be an interior partition that’s aligned with the joists but isn't directly over one. When the floor flexes, the nails in the bottom plate could be rubbing against the sheathing. One solution is to drive screws up through the floor sheathing into the bottom plate to help stabilize it.
I’d love to avoid cutting into the finished basement, so do you think using wood shims under the wall would help fill the gap? Or could that just make things worse?