The success of your flooring installation will be determined by the techniques you employ when installing your sub-flooring. During sub-flooring panel installation, its best to apply an appropriate adhesive and to secure the panels with fasteners or floor screws to prevent squeaks and uneven flooring.
Sub-flooring adhesives must be strong enough to maintain their bond over time, and elastic enough to allow for some movement in the sub-floor panels through pressure or when underlying joists shrink. Squeaks often occur as a result of changes in moisture content levels in the lumber used for joists in your flooring assembly. The squeaking you hear is the sound of the smooth shank of the nail rubbing against the OSB or plywood sub-floor panel. Squeaks can also be caused by the improper application of the adhesive between the joists and sub-floor panels or by using the wrong adhesive for the job.
Here, the OSB or plywood sub-floor panels can lift away from the joists and cause the nails to loosen. Squeaks can also be caused when there is movement in the floor and joists or panels rub against heat ducts or metal joist hangers that have not been properly installed or fastened. When an adhesive is applied in inclement weather or on lumber that is wet, frozen or dirty its performance may be compromised. PL sub-floor adhesive is the best choice for securing sub-flooring panels to joists.
PL allows for easy gunning whether you are outdoors or in and can be used on wet, frozen or treated lumber and its elasticity helps eliminate squeaks. If you wish to use another adhesive, ensure that it meets current industry test standards. When it comes to selecting the support for your finished floors, typical plywood and oriented strand board OSB subflooring satisfy minimum standards in current building codes, but builders and their clients have a choice to use high-performance materials in critical unseen places that can affect long-term flooring performance.
Choosing subflooring with above-code strength, stiffness and fastener-holding power values can help reduce construction delays and the risk of callbacks for squeaky, bouncy floors. Spending time discussing the importance of high-performance materials in unseen places, can be a little trickier, but can make a long-term difference in the comfort of a home.
Here are four qualities you should look for in subflooring material to help ensure quiet, stiff floors:. Subflooring comes in a variety of materials. Typical commodity plywood and OSB is historically known to provide an adequate base to meet the minimum design floor loads from the building code at the time the home is built.
To be sure the structural subfloor can support any loads put on it for years to come, builders can choose subflooring products that are stronger and warranted for the lifetime of the home. Subfloor panel stiffness plays an important role in how satisfied homeowners are with their finished flooring. Wood density and resin composition in engineered wood panels play a role in panel stiffness just like they do in determining strength.
Some commodity subflooring products may lose their ability to hold fasteners in place over time, especially if exposed to moisture during construction. During its unique manufacturing process each wood flake used to make AdvanTech subflooring panels is coated with advanced moisture-fighting resins that not only increase its moisture resistance throughout the panel, but also creates a strong material bond in every square inch of the panel.
This kind of panel design and manufacturing process helps AdvanTech panels grip and hold fasteners in place to reduce the risk of movement between subflooring, joists and floor coverings, which is how squeaks occur. Choosing screw shank or rink-shank fasteners over smooth shank nails can also help reduce the chance of fasteners loosening and allowing for movement that can lead to squeaks over time.
Lower quality subflooring can swell or delaminate when exposed to water during construction. This can create uneven panels that can lead to loosened connections and bonds over time which increases the chance of squeaks. Adhesives should be kept warm during the winter; when cold, they do not adhere as well and become difficult to use, which can lead to bad application. Traditional cartridge adhesives can be harder to use during cold weather — slowing down the installation process and making the job harder than it needs to be.
It can adhere to wet and frozen wood and can cover up to eight times more panels per can. AdvanTech subfloor adhesive starts as a foam and settles into a high-strength gel adhesive. Before applying an adhesive, make sure the surface has no standing water and is free from oil and grease.
Apply only enough adhesive for 2 to 3 panels at a time. With AdvanTech subfloor adhesive, you have a minute open time to install panels. AdvanTech Subfloor Adhesive is fast and easy to install. This is important because easier installation means better application, which leads to stiffer floors. The unique blue color of AdvanTech subfloor adhesive lets you see exactly where the adhesive is and how much has been applied. Double-check your work. Before frame inspection, walk subflooring to look for missing fasteners and any possible inconsistencies.
By taking the best steps toward building a quiet subfloor, you can give homeowners the peace of mind that comes with preventing the nuisance of squeaks and creaks. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Subflooring Secrets to a Quiet Floor. By This Old House. Pinterest Email Pocket Flipboard. About Huber AdvanTech and ZIP System products streamline installation, while providing dependable performance as critical components of quiet, stiff floors and weather-resistant, tight building envelopes.
What makes a quality subfloor panel? Here are a few qualities you should look for in subflooring to help ensure quiet, stiff floors: Strength: How much weight a panel can hold Subflooring comes in a variety of materials. Stiffness: How much the panel will deflect up and down Subflooring must be strong enough to resist weight distributed across its surface, but another important factor is panel stiffness, which helps ensure that subflooring is consistently flat and even.
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