Story #15
One benefit of remodeling our whole house is that we can rebuild it to our top-notch quality standards. We moved nearly every wall on the main level and are replacing all of the flooring. With an unfinished basement ceiling below, we took the opportunity to eliminate all the squeaks on the main level before installing new floors.
Compare the sounds of the nails in this short video of Mim removing them from the subfloor. You can hear which ones were causing the floor to squeak. It was so satisfying to find and remove those squeaky stinkers!
THINGS WE LEARNED
We both assumed that squeaky floors were caused by the wood creaking, but we discovered that the sound is caused by tiny movements of any nails that go through the subfloor but not into the floor joists below. Next time, we will remove these nails much earlier in the project. We planned to address the squeaky floors before the new floors were installed on the main level and the basement ceiling was drywalled, so we had access to the subfloor and floor joists. However, new ducting, plumbing, and electrical lines were installed already and sometimes blocked access to the nails. Now we will consider this step as part of the demolition stage of home remodel projects.
