A squeaky floor board beneath your wall-to-wall carpet is an annoying problem wi
th an easy, DIY solution. It's not necessary to have to pull up any of your carpet to fix,
and with just a few simple tools you can easily fix this problem in an afternoon. Floor squeaks are
caused by gaps between the sub-floor and the floor joists which have separated over time and can be fixed
by simply reattaching that sub-floor back to the framing. The trick, however, is to not
damage your wall-to- wall carpet and to locate where the joists in your floor are located.
Tip: Cut a 6" or 8" piece of wire coat hanger to attach into your drill. You can use this to
locate the joists under your subfloor without damaging your carpet. Once you locate a joist, mark it off with tape.
Tip: If you go beyond 16" left or right without hitting a floor
joist, it may mean that you are drilling in the direction that the floor joists run. Change direction
and try going perpendicular.
Once you have found a joist, you will take your screw and turn
it by hand to create a small hole in the carpet so that when the drill is used, that it does not 'catch'
the carpet. Rotating the screw in a circle within the hole will help make the hole larger.
Tip: Hold sub-floor down with your knees as much as you can to make sure that
it is as tight as possible before driving the screw.
Tip: Stop driving screw once screw head reaches top of carpet. Using a pair of channel lock pliers, twist screw side to side and front and back until screw pops off.
