Squeaking creaking floorboards

Sovereign harbour is full of them. Today I was in a house in Tasmania Way, and the creaking from upstairs when anyone moved about was - horrendous. For many, the classic way to try and stop this creaking is to whack a few screws into the offending area in the hope that it will stop it. In the "good old days" before the advent of central heating and the demise of "proper" floorboards, that worked more often than not. But now, with vast arrays of central heating pipes buried just under the chipboard flooring it is not to be tackled without a large element of caution.

In the harbour most of the floors are chipboard panels, tongued and grooved, and nailed down with powernailers. Over a period of time, and with the large amount of 'settlement' that new builds seem to have, many of these floors don't just groan and moan, they scream and yell.

This particular creaking was finally relieved by lifting a whole section of the floor (2' wide by 12' long) where the pipework ran, trimming the floor panels by a saw blade's worth, and then relaying the offending section of floor. If you decide to do this yourself at home be careful not to slice through any pipes, otherwise it could get very messy.

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