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Posted by on February 7, 2007, 6:52 am
I hope someone can help me with this problem. We bought this townhouse
two years ago. When we first saw the house it was empty. We had the
home inspection and nothing really was wrong with the house. Then the
day we moved in, after the movers were gone, we found that the second
floor was very, very creaky. It was really, really bad. The worst part
was the master bedroom. We called a few people to look at it and a
carpet company came over and they lifted all the carpeting and screwed
down the floors. It was great. There was one problem area, about a
three foot area next to the wall adjacent to the master bathroom (the
master bath has creaks too, but that wasn't screwed down because of
the tile). The guy put shims between the floor and the wall and it was
fine. We had no squeaks or creaks at all. That was done in May 2005.
By December 2005 the creaks were back, but just in that one area by
the wall. But this time it sounded different, like the joists were
making the noise. These were louder cracking sounds. We called
contractors about this and one guy came out and noticed that the floor
in that area dipped down a bit. He removed part of the subfloor to
check the joists and thought they were okay, except that one of them
was a bit lower than the other. He put a different piece of wood back
and suggested that we get all new subflooring and hardwood floors
installed. We weren't too sure about that and decided to get in touch
with the builder and the warranty company (the house has a ten year
structural warranty, and we were in the 7th year). They came to check
it out and said that there was no structural problems. That was in May
2006. A neighbor was there that day and he pulled the carpet back
again and screwed down the floors a second time. Again, no more noise.
Now, Dec. 2006, the noise slowly comes back and today it seems that
the subfloor is not creaking, but it is the joists that are making
this loud cracking sound. The sound also appears in the bathroom and
runs along about three or four joists and it sounds like the wall
makes a noise too. This is driving me crazy. It
is also worse than before. I don't know what to do anymore. I thought
it might be because there is one piece of subflooring that is
different than the rest of the floor or that the bathroom subflooring
is the culprit. I hope someone can point me in the right direction
about how we should proceed with this. Thanks in advance.
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Posted by m Ransley on February 7, 2007, 7:26 am
Of course the builder would say there is no structural problem , get out
a few pros to find and verify the issue in writing, so you know what to
demand from your builder now and in court if needed. Document and
photograph everything. The building inspector, an engineer, or architect
and contractor is needed. The inspector is free.
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Posted by on February 7, 2007, 9:00 am
On Feb 7, 7:26 am, rans...@webtv.net (m Ransley) wrote:
> Of course the builder would say there is no structural problem , get out
> a few pros to find and verify the issue in writing, so you know what to
> demand from your builder now and in court if needed. Document and
> photograph everything. The building inspector, an engineer, or architect
> and contractor is needed. The inspector is free.
It's possbile it's structural, but not that likely. It's very
common for floors that were done fast and cheap to have this problem,
which makes noise abnd is very annoying, but doesn't mean the
structure isn't sound or is in danger of failing. To be done
properly, the plywood should have been glued with construction
adhesive, as well as screwed or nailed (screws are better). If done
improperly, you have this problem, but I doubt it meets the definition
of structural in new home warranties.
When the floor was screwed down, did they put screws no less than 6"
apart along all the joists? In this difficult case, I'd put them
every 4" If that doesn't solve it, then depending on what sound
remains, I might consider opening the ceiling below, depending on
area, etc, so that you can inspect the suspect joists hangers,
nailing, etc. Taking out the ceiling might be easier than removing
the flooring.
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Posted by SMS on February 7, 2007, 9:45 am
trader4@optonline.net wrote:
> When the floor was screwed down, did they put screws no less than 6"
> apart along all the joists? In this difficult case, I'd put them
> every 4" If that doesn't solve it, then depending on what sound
> remains, I might consider opening the ceiling below, depending on
> area, etc, so that you can inspect the suspect joists hangers,
> nailing, etc. Taking out the ceiling might be easier than removing
> the flooring.
The joists may be non-existent in that area.
I had a small section of flooring on a step 40" x 15" that seemed to not
be level, but I didn't worry about it. It had three 1" thick oak boards,
each about 5" wide by 40" long.
Last Saturday I stepped on it, and the wood gave way and I went down
into the crawl space. Amazingly, there was no sub-floor, and no joists
underneath. There were screws through the oak planks, but on two of them
they went into thin air. The planks were held together by small dowel
pins between them, and the front one was on a 4x4 beam, but the two
behind it were not attached to anything. The front board remained
intact, the two behind it collapsed.
These houses were built in 1963 with wood floors, and I think that it's
been this way all that time. No one does real wood floors with 1" thick
oak anymore.
It was very difficult to repair, due to the tiny amount of crawl space.
I figured out a way to attach some joists, and put in a sub-floor, and
now I'm putting in some 1/2" oak planks on top of the sub floor.
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Posted by on February 7, 2007, 10:33 am
On Feb 7, 9:00 am, trad...@optonline.net wrote:
> On Feb 7, 7:26 am, rans...@webtv.net (m Ransley) wrote:
> It's possbile it's structural, but not that likely. It's very
> common for floors that were done fast and cheap to have this problem,
> which makes noise abnd is very annoying, but doesn't mean the
> structure isn't sound or is in danger of failing. To be done
> properly, the plywood should have been glued with construction
> adhesive, as well as screwed or nailed (screws are better). If done
> improperly, you have this problem, but I doubt it meets the definition
> of structural in new home warranties.
>
> When the floor was screwed down, did they put screws no less than 6"
> apart along all the joists? In this difficult case, I'd put them
> every 4" If that doesn't solve it, then depending on what sound
> remains, I might consider opening the ceiling below, depending on
> area, etc, so that you can inspect the suspect joists hangers,
> nailing, etc. Taking out the ceiling might be easier than removing
> the flooring.
When the builder came out to see the house he was with the inspector,
a structural engineer, from the warranty company, who said the joists
were sound. You are correct, this did not meet the definition of
structural defect in the home warranty.
When our neighbor screwed down the floor the second time, he put tons
of nails in the subflooring, at least 6 inches apart or even closer
together.
I am just baffled by this problem. Could humidity play a part in it?
I am going to start calling more contractors to come out and look at
it again. But the last time we were calling around, very few were very
interested to even come out and take a look at it. The one guy who did
really wasn't too sure what to do about it.
Thanks for all the input!!
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