Squeaky

Exploring old water damage

When we first looked at the new house we noticed that the floors squeaked, all the floors in most all of the rooms, but it didn't seem like that big a deal, easily solved with some magic screws or maybe just some more nails. A carpet guy came out and looked at the situation, and he didn't think it would be a big deal. He'd just take up the carpets, nail down the subfloor and put the carpets back down. $1,500 for the whole house, which might have 2,000 square feet of carpet.

We finished deconstructing the kitchen and then we pulled up the hardwood flooring and now we can see the subfloor and what we see isn't pretty. The subfloor is nailed down solidly with 16d sinkers. The problem isn't poor nailing, the problem is the material itself. The subfloor is some kind of hybrid of plywood and particle board. It has wood plys on top and bottom and a center made of particle board and it is at most 5/8" thick. This house was built 40 years ago. In contrast, my current house, which was built 25 years ago, the subfloor is 1 1/4" (1.25 inch thick) plywood.

So we need to replace this low grade subflooring. All of it. All three floors. @#$%^. We started tearing up the kitchen floor yesterday and it was a struggle. Half the time trying to pry up the subfloor, the nails come with it. Half the time the subfloor comes up, but the nails stay in the floor joists and just rips a hole in the subfloor. $%^&&*.

Near as I can tell this kind of hybrid of plywood and particle board is only used for finish work these days, where they use nice veneers over some kind of mickey mouse bullshit, not for anything requiring strength.