How to Silence Squeaky Floors

Featured Pro: Eric Stromer
Category: Home Improvement
Time: 2:23


ERIC STROMER: Hey, I’m Eric Stromer with your GMC Trade Secret.

You know, hardwood floors in an old home sometimes squeak. And there’s a great solution. Sometimes you just find that squeak. There it is. You hear it? Yep. A little baby powder right on the floor where you hear that squeak. Rub it around a little bit with your foot. Walk back over it. Okay, you hear that? We didn’t take care of the problem.

So now it’s time to go underneath the house and address the situation from a subterranean standpoint.

All right, so if your baby powder didn’t work, then we’ve got to go subterranean. We get down underneath in the basement or the crawl space and you’ve walked around upstairs and you’ve located the squeak. Now, what we do is we take some polyurethane caulking, which is about four bucks a tube at the hardware store, and some shims, and we find the errant area where we know that this squeak is. And here’s how you can find out exactly how to locate that.

So it’s right there. I can see exactly where there’s a gap between the sub-floor and the hardwood, right down onto this joist. That’s where that floor is compressing whenever you walk on it. And I can go ahead and pack that with this polyurethane caulking. You want to make sure you really get it in deep. You run a big bead of caulk right up in there. Pull that shim out. That’s your spot. Then go ahead and pack more caulk right in that gap right there. Just squeeze as much as you can in there.

And then once it’s in, you take that shim and you can work that caulk deep, deep, deep into that area where you’re trying to avoid that squeak. Come back a couple more times. Keep applying pressure to the caulk gun, forcing the caulk right in that little seam there. Okay, and we’re all good at that point. And if you want, for extra protection, you can finally shove one shim in there. Get it in as far as you can go and then just snap it off; good to go.

We’ve eliminated the squeaky floor. Sometimes you’ve got to go subterranean. Don’t be afraid to get down in the basement. This is where the origin of the noise could be for you.

I’m Eric Stromer. That’s your GMC Trade Secret.