I've been a carpenter for over 40 years now. Unless you can absolutely say with zero doubt that there are no pipes or cables under your squeaky floor never ever wind screws in to your floor! Just don't do it. It will end in tears.
I did a room before I thought of this and spent the next month terrified something was going to happen. Been a few months and nothing yet. Didn't even think about it cause didn't mention it in instructions and know electrical isn't usually at the top by the decking. But found out my deep scan can pick electrical but wonder how well it works
@@SvEnjoyPro take up the carpet and puff talcum powder into the joints. Only use screws or nails if you know absolutely for sure that there’s no cables or pipes below.
As a fellow carpenter/joiner of 38 years, I agree. The way I do it is to lift a hatch in every area I am going to put down screws then feel as far as possible in every direction for pipes or cables, then batten and fix the hatch back down. Takes a bit longer but no way would I ever fix through a floor without knowing for sure. Squeaks are usually caused by the timber floor rubbing up and down on a nail shank. Using screws eliminates the movement so never use nails to ‘sort’ squeaks.
it is worth noting most pipes are going to be halfway down the joist, by code you can only go through joists at certain depths, so many inches and notch at X footage. A 3 inch construction screw should be fine the majority of the time. Anyway drill into anything and you might hit stuff that's just the reality tho.
As others have said, I’m a builder, especially in the Uk where there’s a lot of shabby DIY and careless trades, there’s no way to predict what you have below, so please don’t randomly screw in to the floor, it will end badly.
Absolutely this, I had to redo the boards in my parents landing because when the plumber had put the boiler in and pipes he hadn't just cut gaps in joists and such he had literally removed about a 1.5m section of joists from the main walkway. The only thing keeping them from falling through was the carpet.
Central heating installations in UK are the cause of most damages like this. I’ve commented on other comments forgetting the US don’t have as much to worry about under the floor as we do. However as a Transco gas engineer I can confirm lots of gas pipes are hit too
I fixed a squeaky floor in my bedroom by just randomly screwing in floor screws. I knew it was a big risk but the way I avoided hitting any pipes or cables was by muttering "please don't be a pipe, please don't be a pipe, please don't be a pipe" as I was drilling and that seemed to do the trick.
Got disaster written all over this! Never just randomly screw into a floor without knowing exactly what's underneath 🤦♂️ (builder with 20 years experience)
I was a carpet installer for nearly 30 years. The squeak you hear is the sound of the wood floor rubbing the side of the nail (or staple. They use big staples to do subfloors floors sometimes). You fix it correctly by peeling back the carpet, and either driving or removing the nail and replacing it with screws. As others have said, you don't want to be in the kitchen watching water flow out of your light fixtures. Which I've seen. Don't just start poking your floors.
I’m an electrician. After lifting many floors and seeing what previous less conscientious trades do....DO NOT DO THIS!! Often electrical cables and water pipes lay in notches just below the underside of the floor boards. Lift the carpet, lift the floor and inspect before drilling into any floor!
There is no trade less conscientious than that represented by electricians. There is no need to notch joists for electric cables, it should be routed through holes made in the centre of the joist. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to yourself, just a general comment
@@handsfree1000 I agree completely. We see it more in older properties. But unless you’ve had a rewire or are certain that pipes and cables pass through the middle of joists as per regs, don’t drill into floors
What? All Wire and Pipe that is less that 1 3/4th inch from the screw side face of the Joist is to be covered with a Nail Plate that you will not be able to drill through. Where the hell did you get your certification?!?!?!?!
@@justinlast2lastharder749 chill your bean Rambo! Read the post. When we lift floor boards, we see pipes and cables running in notches just below the board! We obviously don’t do this now 🤦🏽♂️
I have a partially unfinished basement in my home I recently moved into. I was able to verify the direction of my joists, and how electrical/plumbing routes through them. Used about 8 screws and fixed my incredibly loud living room floor. Thank you for the video!
As experienced tradesmen, I think we should all fully endorse this method for DIY enthusiasts. We could make a fortune, lifting carpets and floors to repair and replace damaged pipes and electrical wires...... and think of all of the ceilings and laminate floors that will need replacements from water damage.... This'll be great for business!!
It will be great for carpet installers as well after the screw catches a thread of the carpet and pulls a neat line right across the floor. (A little bit of learning is a dangerous thing!)
I waited until we replaced the carpet, pulled it up (or rolled it back) a day early, found joist lines based on previous nails, measuring and stud finding. Screwed floor boards down, they installed the carpet, and all good. Except for the one spot I missed that I step on every night on my way to bed so I can wake my wife. 😀
This video is for people who aren't changing their carpets, though. That said, I think the much safer and effective way would be to suck it up and roll the carpet back and do it safely.
Same happened to me. Got all of them except a spot right next to my side of the bed, which started squeaking again a week after my anti-squeak campaign
You forgot to mention the most important part of the whole video, I.e. don’t don’t don’t do this unless you are absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s neither any gas pipes, water pipes, waste pipes, central heating pipes or cables whether electricity, telephone or satellite tv beneath the floor! Also how do you know that the screw won’t catch a thread in the carpet and cause it to run, I.e. ruining your carpet?
It’s a modern build house where all services go though the floors in the middle. So screwing down from the top is ok. But in an older house the pipes run at the top of the joists. And you will hit pipes. Number to times I’ve been out to repair that issue. I’m a plumber! Do not do this unless u are 100% sure. Be carful guys
I came across this video many years ago and I thought it was great. At the time it was not use for me, I did not have carpet floors. Now I moved to a house, installed carpets and I have a squeaky spot, today I came looking for this video! Thanks for making this video!
As a floor man that's installed thousands of floors of all types.. this has to be the dumbest idea I have ever seen. Go ahead, do this on a free floating laminate, berber carpet or vinyl floor. Your local floor covering store will be seeing you shortly. This will cause said floors to fail. Berbers are woven, which means that when this inevitably catches a thread, you have a neat little line running the entire length of the floor. Free floating laminates are normally very face hard, which will almost certainly cause this to snap off prematurely, pinning said floor, causing extreme stress on the joints and you can expect to see peaking and bowed boards the next time the temp drops or climbs. Vinyl floors that little hole over time will turn black and potentially cause a tear in the floor. Also since vinyl floors tend to be installed in rooms with high potential for wet applications, you just created a nice drain for all the moisture to get down and rot away the sub floor beneath it.. this obviously won't work on ceramic floors if they have concrete board underneath, even if they don't, see vinyl above if you wanna see what is gonna happen there. Hardwood floors, you are putting an ugly hole in it at best, at worst it won't go though and will again snap off early.. meaning it either does nothing, or you just made a nice spike to stab you in the foot later. All in all, don't do this. Deal with it until you want to replace your floors and then have it dealt with. Even if it does go through, heed the electricians and plumbers that will also tell you this is a really bad idea. This has the potential to cost you thousands in repair and replacements over a minor annoyance and a 10 cent screw. Just not worth it.
I see a lot of negative comments on this, but maybe I was just lucky, but this worked great for me. Thanks for posting this video. Fixed my annoying squeaky bedroom floor with three screws.
Be carefull with the carpet. Depending on how the carpet is manufactured it is possible for the drill bit to grab the carpet fiber and create a nasty "run" you won't be able to repair.
Most houses in the UK built since the1970s have concrete ground floors and wooden joist/board upper floors. On the upper floors builders run electricity cables and central heating water pipes along or through the joists. If you hit one of these you're in real trouble as one reviewer has already pointed out. The only way to secure your boards is to remove carpet/floor covering so you can see where the nails go thorough the boards and into the joists. You can then hammer new nails (or preferably use 25-30 mm screws) as close as possible to the old ones if any boards are loose and creaking.
This is a brilliant way to find out where all your pipes and wires are - just drive the finder screw in and when you hear gushing water or a loud bang, then you have found your pipes or wires.
You might want to pull a corner of the carpet and padding just to see what you’re dealing with before you try this. 15 years ago we did this and eliminated a squeaky floor. Now that we are upgrading, we discovered a beautiful oak floor underneath all of that… Now riddled with screw bodies! It took hours with a Dremel tool to try to get them below the surface in order to give us any chance of trying to reclaim the original floor. And even with that, we now have dozens of small holes that we hopefully can fill with a mix of sanding dust and clear filler.
In the basement, I would put wooden shims and lightly tap into place to where the joists meet the floor. Squeaks are mostly eliminated without putting unnecessary holes in the hardwood floor.
Yes, especially in this case where there is so much floor movement he can press it down with his hands…. It sounds though like he has drywall on the ceiling in the basement except in that closet.
I've been reading youtube comments for over 2 minutes now, and I can say with 100% certainty that you should always know what is under your floor before screwing into it. Or else bad things could happen!
Same lol Our kitchen has a hoard of squeaky floors so when I saw this I’m like oh it’s that easy? But I went to the comment section and gathered that this guy clearly doesn’t know what he is doing, lol.
If you do any metal detecting, you can use your pin point detector to find the exact nail that is squeaking and then run your screw in. It works great and no special tool needed.
Powerful magnets can also be used to find the nails that are in joists. But on hardwoods and laminates, there are lots of nails that run along the seams where two pieces of flooring join together; you have to avoid detecting those nails if you are fixing a squeak where the subfloor isn’t adequately nailed to the joists.
I've been a pro builder in Minecraft for over 10 years! Never ever start digging into your floor just willy-nilly! There might be lava or a fatal drop!
As a Carpet fitter of over 44 years, you should never drill through a loop pile carpet as you would snag the loop. It would be far easier to uptake the carpet even if it is a Saxony pile carpet as shown in the vid! Regarding pipes and cables as Phil 65 pointed out! You may be able to use a detector? The Principle demonstrated here will work but take note of the other factors that have been pointed out!
Firstly, squeeky floors are caused by movement of the flooring rubbing up and down on the nail. Lift up the carpet and screw directly beside the nails in the flooring that way you'll know that your not going to hit any pipes or wires, it should tighten the flooring down enough to eliminate any movement. Secondly, when laying any flooring onto joists use D4 glue and only a couple of fixings per sheet of flooring just to hold it in place. Using fewer fixings means you are less likely to have any squeeks in your floor, also using D4 adhesive that stuff will stick down anything you won't have to worry about the flooring lifting up!
Not always. They can be caused by timber shrinkage and a favourite is when plumbers install pipework between board runs so the boards don't actually have a fixing on one side. Seen that lots of times.
If you use those colored WAX sticks, be warned that the next time the hardwood floor is recoated or refinished, it will REPEL the finish on all of those holes that were filled with wax and it will look UGLY. Matching colored wood filler should be used.
Very risky to randomly screw through your floors looking for joists with no idea what is under there! do this often enough and you will eventually hit a pipe or some wiring. Squeaky floors particularly in older property's are often caused when the floor has been lifted to retro fit new services making it even more likely the area you are screwing into has something there to damage.
I used a product 'Squeak no more' and it doesn't stay fixed. Head is popped off -> no squeak -> week later, squeaking again. Apparently the floor board works screw loose, with no head on screw.
OMG! This is madness!!! The cavity between floors and ceilings is a pathway for drainage pipes, water supply lines, and electrical and gas lines. Get it? You could pierce one!
I would NEVER take the chance doing this. In so many homes you get so many pipes and wires it's just too risky. And the screw pulls the threads in carpets. But good luck people
As a person that's been fitting carpets for 20 years, this is honestly the silliest thing I've seen in the last few years... If you have good carpets the pile will stand an incredibly high chance of catching the screw and will ladder and tear your carpet, and that's BEFORE you go through the floor and possibly hit any number of pipes or wires. DO NOT DO THIS. Lift your carpet, lift your boards, locate your joists and mark the floor board appropriately to the safe location to screw the board down and do the job properly. Do it properly once and never do it again, don't do things half arsed and end up giving yourself another two jobs to do on top of the damages you will no doubt cause.
On exposed joists like those, you just drill one hole from the bottom side next to the stud you want to hit and stick something like a wire hanger up through. Then you have a reference point to go off of and only one "extra" hole in the floor🤷♂️
Can see this being a way a springing a few leaks, or hitting some cables, you just never know how the work has been done under the floor. As a heating engineer, I go to many instances where somebody has put a screw directly through a pipe, thats when they have the carpet up too. Always best to take carpets and floor boards up to make sure first, could save you a hefty charge.
That is shocking, i can’t think of anything more dangerous than to screw blindly into the floor boards where all services to electricity, heating, and main water supply run. Good luck.
On modern homes you're pretty safe. They don't run wires or pipes 2" under the surface. There's predrilled holes in the center of joists about 8" under the floor. Its highly unlikely they'd get anywhere near the top if they do drill their own holes. I've been doing construction for 20 years and haven't ever hit a pipe or wire nailing hardwood but I hit a waterline once screwing drywall to the wall, and that was the plumbers fault for not putting a nail guard over the stud. So I think your pretty safe unless you have heated floors
Yep gotta agree with Tom Finnan, drilling them 70mm screws blindly into the floor is a recipe for disaster. What is surprising here is taking the carpet up and removing the ply isn’t that hard a job - this tool is solutionism at it’s worst
@@nickyp909 its a hard job for someone that doesn't know what their doing. If a body of carpet is connected by hallways to other rooms etc. You'd have to cut the carpet in places and re-seam everything and re-stretch. I charge $125 min to come out + $125 an hour to do carpet or any flooring repairs. Then if you're gonna tear out subfloor looking for pipes or whatever you're talking about, it'll rack up to several thousand quickly. I do 90% flooring jobs now days and half of it is hardwood. I drive nails into subfloor all day long. No issues EVER! And DIY projects are done at your own risk. So if you fuck something up, your gonna have to call a professional to come fix it. I'd probably take the risk if I didn't know what I was doing and didn't want to pay a contractor hundreds or possibly thousands to fix it. That's how all squeaks are fixed, by driving screws into the floor! And most sub flooring is already nailed with 16p ring shank nails. So plumbers drill several inches below that in the joist.
@@jmccormick1490 .....Well sorry, but I am a flooring contractor, and your comment makes you look as professional as a new born baby on a building site!..........That product should NEVER BE USED!!
Very impressed. I've got a question for you..over at my mother's place she's got several spots that squeek. Can the same tool be used if it's in a mobil home that was made in the late 60's/ early 70's?
Don’t be lazy. Pull the carpet up, pull the pad up. Once subfloor is exposed remove the squeaky nails first, then drill pilot holes (to avoid spliting/splintering) through subfloor following the nail lines. Adjust if necessary since contractors are lazy and miss the joist. Once ready, fill hole with wood glue and screw down. Wipe excess glue, and repeat throughout room. Once all are done, replace the pad, restaple it, and roll the carpet back down. FYI, its easiest to do one side of the room at a time (rolling the carpet and pad out of the way)
@@robfreeman5783 you don't necessarily need a screw that long in this case, it's not a joist he's drilling into, it's a wood truss( the top is only 1.5 inches)
I see what you mean. I meant "no special power tools", but it is confusing. I edited that sentence out and the change should show in RU-vid within a couple of hours. Thanks for pointing that out.
@@LRN2DIY It was just a minor detail I found funny, I didn't mean to make you have all that work 😅 Btw, I didn't even know it was possible to make those kinds of edits after a video was published! Thanks for teaching me!
Thank god theres alot of builders and experienced professionals in the comments to call this DIY hack out.. Just from helping my dad way back in high school build our house I could have told you this is not the right way to go about fixing a squeaky floor.
Sorry my friend but this is utterly ridiculous! It's only a matter of time before you screw through a central heating pipe or electric cable. I don't know everything about flooring but I've been doing the job for 43 years so I know a thing or two. This is very dangerous!
Exactly…………….can’t believe how many people think that this is a brilliant idea……………someone is going to get hurt doing this or worse have a fatal electrical shock PS been an electrician since mid 70s
The proper way to do it right is to pull up carpet, hardwood floor and screw directly into subfloor. They used to use nails and would tend to get loose. My father and I did this when I was a teenager. It took a long time, but was well worth it. Im not putting holes into my new carpet. When its time to replace is perfect time to do it
This is really helpful video 👍. They way you explained is really going to help someone who wants to get rid of squick without spending money on contractors.
That is an awesome solution, we’ll have to try that. FYI, one of the other reasons why floors squeak apart from screws missing the joist, is the wood glue was not applied sufficiently or at all.
Watching the shock on a complaining customers face was priceless. "Your floor squeaks you say?". Whips out hammer and a 16 cc nail. Bam bam bam... Homeowner: " gasp". Me: "Fixed it! Now pay me!" lol
@@fmlyman1012 I looked up this tool and it says it comes with a "berber carpet screw example" and then it says you need to tape the screw like the one in the example so it doesn't catch the carpet like you're saying. Check this out, it's the instructions for it: go.rockler.com/tech/Squeeeeek-No-More-Floor-Squeak-Repair-Kit-Instructions.pdf I'm gonna get a professional though, otherwise with my luck I would either tear it up or hit a pipe or wire and then be looking at a huge problem. Not worth the risk.
@@1122redbird I live in Annapolis Maryland so if you live near there I can help you otherwise I would just get a carpet professional Berber is tricky good luck though
@@fmlyman1012 Thanks I'm too far away or I'd take you up on that, I called a couple of people who say they can fix it but getting them to actually show up and do it is another story. People only want to deal with big jobs right now because construction is going strong so they don't always call back or even answer calls. I bought a condo and its up on the third floor, I'd take a stab at fixing it myself but I have no idea what's below the floor and if I screwed it up it would be a disaster.
i seen boschr came out with a fancy new stud finder that tell what material it is detecting. could save alot of headache. I also would use more then 2 inches of screw. 7/8 - 1 inch for the subfloor then another 1-1 1/8 to screw into the 2x material of the joists.
I needed this 10 years ago when my daughter was a newborn. Our house was older and all of our floors/stairs creaked one way or another & it was just something that we didn’t even worry about until she came home. We had tape marks anywhere that the floor really made noise so we avoided it. Sometimes though (especially doing long reach steps) we would hit new squeaks….and pausing when your almost in a split, a quarter of the way out the door trying to bring the other leg to meet up with the rest of your body…..ow. I liked to think that I was Vincent Cassel in Oceans 12 maneuvering his way through the lasers At the museum to steal the faberge egg. I’d I had this though….I would have been saved from many pulled muscles and loss of sleep 😂
and then the screw snags a carpet thread and wow!!!! you have a nice line running through your carpet! thank goodness that little squeak in the closet is gone. your guests will never hear that permanent line in the carpet!
comment section here is quite informative. some basement will allow you to see pipes and wires on the ceiling so that you can at least try this on the ground level floor squeeks
