# Forum Home Renovation Sub Flooring  Fixing creaking chipboard floor and joist

## hopgrot

Hey All 
Its Sunday night and I'm dirsty , tired, and generally brassed off! 
I've had a creaking chipboard floor for some time now and its been getting progressively worse.  I'm also in the process of preping the floors in the living area before putting vinyl planks down and so thought i could fix the creaking whilst improving the level of the chipboard floor.  Anyway, I've screwed down all of the dodgy sheets in the area of the creaking and this has helped with the some of the movement.  However..... 
The root of all the creaking and flex in the foor is occuring where some of the sheets go under one of the internal walls.  I went under the floor this arvo and there is bit of vertical movement in one of joists below the internal wall where all the creaking is coming from.  Its clearly been a problem in the past as I'm guessing the previous owners have had a go at a fix becuase theres loads of adhesive in and around the join between the joist and chipboard. 
There does not appear to be any damage to the joist (just a bit of movement), the bearers look sounds, and the brick piers look fine. 
My thought was that I'd jack up the offening joist by a few mill and insert a couple of "mini" joists running parallel to the offening joist between the adjacent bearers and then screw down the chipboard to the new joists. 
Does this sound sensible/legal/likely to work??? 
As an aside, the joists are 50*100 spaced at 450 centres with T&G yellow tongue on top. 
few  - its good to get things of my chest and it makes more sense when I type it down. 
Thanks for any advice,
     Hopgrot

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## Bedford

Can you post some pics? 
You might be able to just drive some wedges between the joist and bearer.

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## hopgrot

Thanks for the patience - finally got in front of the computer with some pics. 
Long story cut short - I've packed out the gaps between the bearers and joists and (as with screwing down the chipboard floor loads) this has helped a bit with the state of the floor in general. But.....  the really bad creaking is still there - aargh!  
Anyway, once I'd ripped up the carpet tack strips I noticed that there was a 5mm or so gap between the chipboard floor and the skirts on the internal wall - check out the magic trick of the disapearing A4 sheet of paper in the pics below.  So with nothing to loose I packed out the gap with plenty of adhesive and some spare ply and Robert is my dads brother - no more ear shatering squeeking. Hurrah!  I'm guessing either the floor moved, the internal wall moved, or the internal wall was not fixed down properly; and that the squeeking was the floor/wall moving about a nail or two.   
Now onto the next problem. 
Cheers,
      Hopgrot

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## Bloss

You have to pack up that bearer to meet the joist and any others you can see - gaps = bounce. You need to pack from the bottom - ie: between the bearer and the pier. So you will need to use a wedge or a jack to lift it into place then use a packer.

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## barney118

> You have to pack up that bearer to meet the joist and any others you can see - gaps = bounce. You need to pack from the bottom - ie: between the bearer and the pier. So you will need to use a wedge or a jack to lift it into place then use a packer.

   :What he said:  use compressed fibro for packing.

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## Bloss

Or purpose designed packing wedges . . . or any non-compressible material of the correct thickness. I know people get concerned about termites - but if they get to be eating a bit of packing under a bearer or joist without you knowing you have bigger problems on your hands . . .

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## Boolligan

Only pack from the pier to underside of bearer as has already been stated.  If there is a gap DONT fill it with "GLUE ?" or silicon etc.  Make sure you use a jack and check the whole run.  Oh, by the way,  you would be amazed what a liberal sprinkling of talcomb powder fixes for minor seasonal shrinkage/movement

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## Bloss

Talcum's useless for this sort of problem and not much value on chipboard panelfloor, but can work well for T&G flooring if you have access from above and the noise is from the T&G's rubbing and squeaking - if the cause is gaps in sub-floor talc's not relevant..

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