[Please Help] Need to lift chipboard flooring to address pipes knocking

R

RipGroove

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Novice DIY'er here by the way. I have both creaky floorboards and loud water pipes so I figured I'd tackle both jobs in one go if I can. I get water hammer when taps are turned on and off and the pipes also bang very loudly when the central heating is on. Most of the pipes in my house are flexi pipes so I'm guessing they haven't been secured all that well in the floor/ceiling cavity.

So my plan is to lift the floorboards, secure the pipes and then refit some new floorboards 'properly'. So how do I lift the floor boards without just going crazy and ripping it all up in a big mess? Do I hole saw around each nail or punch each nail right through the board?

Also it seems that the upstairs floorboards were put in before all the stud walling (usual practice I assume), but that means I have some floorboards that go under the stud walling, do I just leave those individual boards and try to work around them?

See attached image, this is typically how each room looks, you can see that every other board disappears under the wall :-(
 

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I used 22mm Caberfloor moisture resistant chipboard, T&G. Glued the T&G with their own brand glued, looks near identical to your link, and I screwed the boards down to the joists, a screw every 150mm or thereabouts along every joists.

I used full thread screws, combination of Reisser R2 and turbosilver screws, approx 60mm long
 
Ps, drill hole, insert jigsaw, cut and then nail bar and chisel the old boards out. Obviously remove every screw first.
 
Any thoughts on those screws I linked above? They seem to get good reviews for stopping creaky floors.

Also where am I glueing, on the tongues and grooves and also along the tops of the joists?
 
If most or your pipes are flexi type why are they banging?
How do you intend to secure your banging pipes?
You use the term floorboards. Do you mean floorboards or do you mean chipboard. It would be unusual to glue floorboards.
Don't listen to BMC2000, you should not use full threaded screws unless you drill a clearance hole in each board first. Otherwise the board will not be pulled down tight to the joist. Personally, I use Screwtite but there are others with a smooth shank.
What are ringed screws? Get an impact driver on them, then they'll budge.
 
Your floor looks loads better than mine did! And it's common practice to build your floor, then partition the rooms off.

Perhaps your pipes knock because they run straight through the joist notches? You could try padding with some foam insulation?

And as NoOhmToGoTo says - do not use full threaded screws! I used Floor-Tite screws, and a generic PVA.

My advice (and it is only advice) to you would be try cut one or more small-ish holes - either drill and jig-saw (where you KNOW there are no pipes) or circular saw set to cut to the same depth as the floor.

Then inspect your joists, pipes, floor layout etc. This is with the aim to figure out where I need to pack my joist notches, or holes - or even lag the entire lot, and where (if at all) I need to reinforce my pipes

It's worth checking that your wall is supported by noggins or a joist - if not - I would recommend reinforcing - otherwise cracks might appear as the chipboard flexes, or gets damp and sags.

Then drill a small pilot hole, countersink, and drive a flooring screw screw next to each nail - pulling the flood tight to the joist - no need to go replacing floors.

I'd then either widen my inspection holes to the joists & install noggins, or screw some 2x4 lengths into the existing floor, and then the cut-out floor to that.

creaking floors are caused by movement - stop the movement, you stop the creaking.

Hope some of this helps :-)
 
I'm sure the heating pipes are copper, they bang very loudly as they expand. I'm sure our water pipes to taps are flexi, and they 'jump' sharply when a tap is turned on and again when is turned off, they obviously haven't been clipped down enough if at all.

I was planning on adding more clips to the flexi pipe to secure it.

And I was either going to add more clearance in the joists around the copper pipes OR add some kind of camping material around the pipes where they pass through the joists (lagging, carpet or whatever OR wedge some wood over the pipes as they pass through the joist to limit their movement. Not sure what the preferred method is and I'm not sure exactly what the pipes are fouling on until I get the chipboard boards up and take a look.
 
Not an easy job. Looking at your images I'd say the existing boards are nailed not screwed, which won't help. If I ever need to remove boards to get to pipes I set the depth on my circular saw so it's cutting to maybe 1/2mm less than the depth of the floor, and cut right along the top of a joist so any board can go down. Get an evolution saw and you can even cut right through the nails if any are in the way. Chipboard has no real strength going sideways, so the boards will pull away from any fixings within about 10mm of an edge with relative ease. The 2-3mm gap from the saw should be enough to get a chisel in and lever them up.

The big problem you could well have here is how close to the walls you plan to cut. Judging by the screws your stud wall goes along the direction of the joist, but may not sit directly on top of it.

If this was me, I would remove the flooring above the pipes using the method above of a circular saw set to the right depth - check this on some scrap if possible. Take it slowly and cut too shallow then edge down, you don't want to nick a pipe or cable. I would then sort the pipes, however you plan to do that, then put the flooring back, and see what difference adding some decent flooring screws in addition to the existing nails makes. If they can stop the floor from moving, they might help stop the creaking without ripping it all out. I don't know if that would work, but it would seem to be a pretty easy thing to test without destroying the existing floor. Worst case scenario, you should be able to take out the screws and still use them on the new floor, and you haven't lost anything apart from some time.
 
You really wouldn't believe the racket that's heard downstairs whenever someone is walking around (even lightly) upstairs. They can step on a floor board in one half of a room and the other half of the room will crack, knock and creak, it's very bizarre, it's like none of it very secure at all.

And also you wouldn't believe the noises that come from our ceiling/floor cavity when the heatings on, it's like someone is dropping a hammer from 4ft high on to the floor upstairs, if you imagine no carpets or underlay, it's a proper loud clang.
 
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gpierce said:
Not an easy job. Looking at your images I'd say the existing boards are nailed not screwed, which won't help. If I ever need to remove boards to get to pipes I set the depth on my circular saw so it's cutting to maybe 1/2mm less than the depth of the floor, and cut right along the top of a joist so any board can go down. Get an evolution saw and you can even cut right through the nails if any are in the way. Chipboard has no real strength going sideways, so the boards will pull away from any fixings within about 10mm of an edge with relative ease. The 2-3mm gap from the saw should be enough to get a chisel in and lever them up.

The big problem you could well have here is how close to the walls you plan to cut. Judging by the screws your stud wall goes along the direction of the joist, but may not sit directly on top of it.

If this was me, I would remove the flooring above the pipes using the method above of a circular saw set to the right depth - check this on some scrap if possible. Take it slowly and cut too shallow then edge down, you don't want to nick a pipe or cable. I would then sort the pipes, however you plan to do that, then put the flooring back, and see what difference adding some decent flooring screws in addition to the existing nails makes. If they can stop the floor from moving, they might help stop the creaking without ripping it all out. I don't know if that would work, but it would seem to be a pretty easy thing to test without destroying the existing floor. Worst case scenario, you should be able to take out the screws and still use them on the new floor, and you haven't lost anything apart from some time.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much my plan, the only thing I'm not sure of is exactly where the pipes are so I may end up taking all of the floor up just to locate and 'fix' them. If I can get away with leaving some boards down I will, I'll just add some screws to them in between the existing nails.

Are well all agreed then that I should be using these screws:

http://www.toolandfix.com/spax-t-st...a1uJT8pqSrKp6gCaGuXz-QulAEmFkOs5BMaAoM78P8HAQ
 
I now have an empty spare room where I can practice what needs doing in the othe rooms that are in use, I'll be in no rush so I'll take it slow and post my progress and any issues I might have back here and await some feedback before wrecking everything.
 
Screws - OK... I'd prefer PZ2 screws so you're not restricted to 'special' bits in the future.

And the saw - I'd get a proper one - like this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/evolution-rage-1b-185mm-multipurpose-circular-saw-230v/84664

I got one of these, and 1 neat and 1 rough blade and absolutely love it!
http://www.screwfix.com/p/makita-hs7601j-2-1200w-190mm-circular-saw-240v/3936j
and I have used it to replace 3 floors, and a million other jobs that I'd have tried to bodge with a jig saw before
 
Whitling2k said:
Screws - OK... I'd prefer PZ2 screws so you're not restricted to 'special' bits in the future.

And the saw - I'd get a proper one - like this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/evolution-rage-1b-185mm-multipurpose-circular-saw-230v/84664

I got one of these, and 1 neat and 1 rough blade and absolutely love it!
http://www.screwfix.com/p/makita-hs7601j-2-1200w-190mm-circular-saw-240v/3936j
and I have used it to replace 3 floors, and a million other jobs that I'd have tried to bodge with a jig saw before
Click to expand...

Cool, thank you.
 
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