You can see horizontal and stair-step cracks in brickworks.This happens because they are brittle and the floor beneath them is moving. There is a gap between your floor and the wall.The floors of your home are becoming uneven, and their slope is getting steeper.The floors of the pier and beam foundation in your house move when you walk on them.Here are some signs to look out for, to determine if your squeaky floors are caused by structural damage: If your foundation settles unevenly, not only will your floors creak, but you will have many other structural problems as well. It can even pull out the nails that secure it, and then cause your floor to creak. If your foundation moves, it can stress or damage your flooring. Your flooring and subflooring does not always adjust properly to these changes. A foundation shifts, moves, and settles over time due to various factors such as expansive soil and moisture. That also means your home might experience structural damage. There Is a Problem With Your Home’s FoundationĬreaking floors are a sign of issues with your home’s foundation. This results in undesired expansion and shrinkage of your flooring and might be why your floor is squeaking. If the installer was hasty and didn’t allow time for this process, the flooring will continue to move and acclimate with your house on top of it. The Flooring Didn’t Acclimate to the Environmentįloor installers should leave the flooring to acclimate with the environment for some time. This is very typical of homes with crawl spaces and multiple floors. And of course if the blocking is improper, the joists can move and cause creaking. Contractors can block floor joists at different points to make them secure. This often loosens nails in the subfloor too. The floor joists could also become cracked. When you walk on the floor above it, the loose nail rub on the wood or the subfloor rubs on the floor joists to make the squeaking sound. And then the nails used to hold the subfloor down might become loose over time because of the uneven joists. If the floor joists are uneven, the subflooring that rests on them will be uneven too. This causes spaces between the flooring and subfloors, which then squeak when you walk over them. It helps to keep a humidifier going in the winter to help keep things more consistent overall.Īnother common reason for creaking floors is an improperly installed subfloor. If you face either of these situations in your house, the issue is likely to be moisture and changing air humidity rather than a structural problem. The loose attachment causes squeaks in your floor. The wood expands again, but this time it is more loosely attached to the subfloor.
When the season changes and spring starts, the air inside the house returns to normal humidity.
Wood is very porous and sensitive to humidity. This causes the air inside the home to become very dry. In our cold Ottawa winters, we have to keep our homes heated while the outside temperature is very cold.
Here are some of the most common reasons you should consider: Structural problems are usually not major causes of squeaky floors, but once you’ve ruled out the easy fixes, you might need to call in an expert to help investigate further.īy taking all these factors into account, you can make an educated guess about the reason behind your squeaky floors. However, a squeaky floor can also be a symptom of a greater problem with your home’s structure. It is a very common issue with simple solutions in most cases. There could be many reasons your floor is suddenly squeaky.
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