Creaking Thresholds

If creaking is the only issue....

Can't use any type of fluid with laminated flooring, even water water will cause it to swell.

If the creaking is between laminated flooring joints/ thresholds, Del could try a "dry type" of lube like talcum power (baby powder), a bit messy but he'd have nothing to lose by trying it. He might even have some left over from the grand kids growing up (Disclaimer; Talcum power will make the flooring slicker than snot and must be thoroughly cleaned from the floor surface) Do not use graphite, it's a fantastic lube but impossible to clean up on laminate flooring

I concur that talc is the recommendation. Corn starch might work, but it will stick together and make a mess if any moisture.

Not sure how I totally missed your last paragraph in #11 and the talcum powder. So, to right a wrong I did give you the GA. But as typical on CR4 the OP disappears?

Hellooooooo Del, you still around

I'm lurking. Well to honest I've been decorating the bathroom most of this week .

Still it's earning me brownie points .
I may just learn to live with the creak, it seems the cure may be worse than the disease.
Del

Are you dismantling a cast iron tub within the bathroom? I heard that some participants here know about such things...

Drew K

Be sure and wear your hearing protection while doing that job!

That stuff Really does stop squeaks! I sprayed a cricket with it once,and the squeaking stopped immediately.

You should have seen him,rubbing his legs together furiously,but getting no sound.

After a few seconds,a trickle of smoke rose from his front legs,and he burst into flames.

Don't try this at home! (Go to a friend;s house and try it!)

I wonder if machinery grout could work, especially the polymer kind that may even expand a little as it sets up.

What is the "crumbly surface". Wood floor joists? Concrete slab? (compacted cat litter?)

I doubt that there is any solution that doesn't make a mess. A concrete slab might be improved by removing loose material (make a mess) and pouring some of the epoxy based concrete leveling compound. Wood floor could then be attached to the new solid surface.

If wooden floor joists are crumbling then a change of address might be best. Second choice might be to use metal straps/brackets to transfer the attachment point down from the crumbling surface to a solid area of the joist. Use the metal to support a nailer spanning the joists.

Silicon does a real good job of sticking metal/glass to metal/glass. Used on crumbling wood I suspect you will have almost no adhesion on day #1 and it won't be long until the motion and abrasion cause the silicon to crumble too.

Hopefully someone else will have a suggestion that will be the cats meow.

The floor is a dryish, screed over concrete, it's in an extension and isn't very well made. When I did the adjacent kitchen it took half a wheelbarrow of screed to get it up enough to then use self levelling.
Del

If you can get to the subfloor where the wood is crumbly, clean out the crumbly bits and fill all the holes and cracks with a good quality wood repair epoxy. Then if necessary, square up the flooring on either side of the threshhold and screw-down a piece of hard wood as needed for any remaining gap. Install a new low-rise threshhold with a piece of felt or thin nylon sheet underneath it to prevent the squeeks.

Fwiw, when the late Mrs U was in a wheelchair I made a threshhold out of a wide oak plank that was about 5 inches long with a shallow ramp angle and installed it over the existing threshhold that went outside to the deck (with a matching ramp/threshhold on the other side) so she could go outside to water her plants and watch the birds.

The previous wooden thresholds were a pain for my son if he's wheeling from kitchen, through the sun lounge to the study/music room with a cup of coffee in one hand, that's why I went for the V thin plastic.
Don't s'pose the creak will kill us any time soon, but you know how irritating these things are. I'f only I'd done it all at the same time I'd have got good clean solid level surfaces between the rooms.

Something like a polyeurathane foam that doesn't expand too much and stay a tad flexible and was easy to clean up would prob do it.... if only such stuff existed.
Del

That's a bit like what I have, but the bottom half is just silly short lengths that are supposed to stick down.
Del

Those ones with the narrow under section are supposed to lock into a channel between raised levels of two sections of flooring (room - to - room).

Try another type of threshold if possible, these strips are not really expensive.

One other trick is to get crazy with some talcum powder, baby powder or the like at that threshold in question, and see if the creaky bits will now slide over each other.

Maybe some Flex Seal would work....

The only thing I can think of is glue.

Builders and contractors that I used to work with installed their flooring "glued and screwed." They'd run a caulk gun full of super-adhesive glue made for wood on floor joists, and then lay the OSB on them and attach the sheets with wood screws. They first tried nailing, and got squeaks.

Then they tried nailing and gluing, and still got squeaks. They they tried screwing and got squeaks. Finally, they threw the kitchen sink at them, glued the suckers, and screwed'em in with determination born of desperation. No squeaks.

When they laid laminate or hardwood on top of the sub-flooring they had glued and screwed, they used that foam stuff underneath them, the thin, resilient, "made to put under laminate and hardwood floors on top of sub-flooring" stuff, to provide a bit of "give" once they were down.

In your application, since you probably don't want to go ripping up thresholds, you might look at finding a way to introduce a really spiffy kind of glue or epoxy underneath them, let it set and dry, and then use really medieval-looking screws to secure it once it's set and dried. You wouldn't want to have the fastening action of the screws drive the adhesive out of the areas you were trying to secure and quiet down.

Just a thought.

I've used this type of transition quiet a lot with great results. It has a metal channel that the transition threshold clips into. The metal channel is screwed first, using either wood screws or anchor inserts and screws. Couple times I've had to use 3.125 mm x 63 mm to get into good substrate.

I get the thresholds from Home Depot here in the States, but I'm sure you can find the same thing in your neck of the woods

Ta' I'll have a look for that type.
Del

Years ago I heard that mixing Elmer's glue with water, 50/50, and pouring it onto a creaking floor would stop the creaks. Don't know if it would help your situation. Let us know what you come up with.

Call Bob, he is a builder. I know he can fix it! If not, look it up in Argos and the Postman with the black and white cat will bring it. Pat loves to deliver Argos packages!

Drew K

How are tricks, Drew?

Still working the new job. They have me modeling fun stuff in Inventor. I made this gem the other day, they work in inches here (I hate standard units!) and the model I am working from was about .75 in long. It was punched with a multi-step punch machine, I got a strip of the material with all the punch steps on it so I could get the flat dimensions. Then I bent and folded as inventor allowed. The hole was done with a punch mold created from an extruded hole I had to make first.

Nothing creaky here except the keyboard!

Drew K

That is an interesting widget.

Ahh....I am loosing my touch. How could I have forgotten to ask Del if the floor had a bow to it? Tightening the string my take the squeak out!

Drew K

Clear away what you can of the subfloor and concrete and then apply a layer of polymer modified thinset mortar, such as

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Custom-Building-Products-VersaBond-White-50-lb-Fortified-Thinset-Mortar-MTSW50/100091767

This is material often used to set heat mats in mobile home floors and is quite flexible, tough and durable. Set a new piece of subfloor over the thinset and finish the threshold as required. You need to plan ahead for stackup heights to end up at the elevation you want. With judicious planning, you may be able to run flooring right through the door opening and avoid a transition threshold.

The words, " transition threshold " , between rooms sounds odd. It sounds as if two adjoining rooms were constructed as two separate units.

I see this as two cardboard boxes placed side to side or end to end, each box has its own base, independent of the other. Assuming that the two boxes are level, independent and respectively to each other, there would still be a gap between the boxes, the general idea being to bridge the gap, a transition is secured to each side. As weight is applied to one box, the other box being firm and level, with a transition secured to both sides, the opposite box tries to fight the movement of the first box as relayed through the joint attachment points, thus a creak or noise is created.

Now if a threshold was attached to only one box, rather than both boxes, and the opposite side of the threshold was to float over the gap and the second box, the creak sound might be reduced although not completely eliminated.

A transition threshold is used if the floors are different types, as in carpet to tile, different elevations or structurally separated floors, such as at a concrete slab expansion joint. It can also occur if the door requires a weather seal at the bottom or if there is a raised barrier, such as at the edge of a tiled shower, to prevent water or other things from passing through the doorway. One threshold I saw had two electrified copper strips set in 2" apart. It was a mouse zapper and the owner did not go into the space in bare feet.

Depending on the use, decoration or flooring types selected, each room can be considered a separate unit.

I agree with you, I just didn't see anything in the OP about tile or carpet, maybe I missed that.

He didn't actually mention it. Just that the threshold creaks and the structure underneath was suboptimal.

Did the mouse zapper work ?

Maybe we could open a discussion on pest control, rather than who,where, if and who might pay for a wall :)

Actually, it worked extremely effectively. The installation was in England and was energized with 220V.

I have thought about setting one up as a slug zapper. Two wires about 1/2" apart under a PVC cover. Slimey slides in, but he doesn't slide out.

My chicken pen is guarded by a similar device... 2 wires appx 3" apart on insulators 3" above a 5' fence, using a microwave oven transformer that outputs appx 6000v @500ma. No mice yet, but an opossum, 3 'coons, and 9 feral cats, 1 with a collar. Seems to be quite effective.

I had a problem with a long line electric fence not being effective for goats,so I ran the output(5KV) through a solid state HV quadrupler(20kv out) from an old color TV.

It worked great in dry weather;it would light up a neon tester from 5 feet away..problem was,the dew in the mornings would short out the insulators,effectively killing the fence.

And goats can smell the ozone when the fence is on,and if they don't smell it,they escape.

To much of a good thing,I guess.

I removed the tripler and ran a ground wire under the hot wire all the way around.

Then they lifted the ground wire with their horns,and shorted out the hot wire.

The alpha billy goat would hold up the wire with his horns while the rest of them went under.

If hadn't seen it,I would not have believed it.

They then went into the cow pasture,and showed the cows how to escape.

This started a cascade of problems with my neighbor when my bull tussled with his bull.

I sent my two boys over to retrieve the bull.They were 10 and 12 years old.

One of them had a clip for the bull's nose ring and the other had a rope noose for his 'nad sack.

The one on the nose ring was a GO signal,and the one in the rear was a speed limiter.

The bull marched right home,like a soldier,in lock-step with the boys,not too fast,not too slow.

Anyway,I learned my lesson about trying to outsmart a billy goat:

The only way to beat a goat,is to eat a goat.

I neutered him,and after about 2 months, the strong odor was gone, he gained

weight,and was delicious on the grill.

We had a gentle bull like that once. Is yours an Angus, Hereford? Ours was an Angus named "Shorty". He could get out of his holding pen, by taking out the top 2x10, about 6' off the ground on his way over. Shorty was one powerfully muscular S.O.B., and a prolific calf maker.

Sorry for the goat, I am sure he is missed. (At least now the BBQ is over.) Grand paw used to say, "Everyone should have a case of the goats at least once."

This was Chianina bull.

Great big teddy bear around people,but not too nice to other bulls.

The nose ring and emergency stop rope were just precautions in case he saw another bull.

Bred to an Angus,and at 6 months old,the calf was as big as his mother.

This was many years ago.

Time flies.

As for the goats:The only good use for a billy goat I've ever seen was in a flight jacket.

The electric super fence idea was abandoned due to shorting out in the morning dew,and it wreaked havoc with the AM radio.

Went back to standard fence charger after that.

Got rid of the goats when price went up,bought feeder pigs instead.

No problem with Houdini pigs at all.

Pigs just want to be near the feed trough.

There is no way in heLL that is off-topic, it is the best post I have ever read, bar none.

I agree, go figure

I marked it off topic myself,since it was not related to the OP's question.

I couldn't resist the parallel with the pigs and politicians,so I interjected a little humor

and philosophy into the mix.

"I got a million of 'em" -----Jimmy Durante

Just had to mention those damn nose rings! I'm having to fly out of Portland, Or. And while walking down the concourse, I spied a blonde, about 5' 5" with an hour glass figure, cute from the back side, then she turned around and low and behold if she didn't have a nose ring the size I had on my Brama Bull. Now, I'm left wondering if she is wild as my bull was?

Living in Portland with it's political and social climate, it's entirely possible that she wasn't necessarily a she.

That is true, fortunely I'm just pass'n thru. And, no I will pick up that bar of soap you dropped

Depends on how good a grip you have on the ring. Or vice versa.

You don't want to know. I night with someone as that, might be your last one? Picture an image of her standing over you with a butcher knife, that should calm things back down a bit.

So you are not reporting any children encountering this device, yet. I think you better turn up your insurance. First human child touches that thing, you're gonna have some 'splaining to do. Sorry to have to be the one that points this out.

As long as you've got pigs, there's no evidence to speak of left behind.

That sounds like a quote from the movie: "Hannibal"!

True that large swine will eat most anything including not yet dead (but perhaps injured) humans. Sometimes they will gladly do all the injuring by themselves.

I suppose DNA would still be present from the deceased, as found in near term pig poop.

I don't know why the web page I linked to Home Depot didn't list the transition between lam flooring to lam flooring but I know they stock it. Even tho the threshold is in a fixed position it still allows the flooring to float. And because these types of floorings "float" any transition thresholds have to allow for this. You just can't take a standard threshold and screw it down like you would a normal standard floor. The transition "strip" Doorman mentioned in #8 and the transition thresholds I'm talking about are designed to let the floor float.

And the more I'm thinking about this, Del might have a substantial devit in the sub-floor thus allowing an excess amount of bowing to take place when local pressure is applied to that area and causing the creaking. The talcum power should be able to help quieting it down if applied to the "opened joint" between the floor slats. And that's just my train of thought from pass experiences with laminated floorings.

To clarify.
The subfloor is continuous but poor quality and damaged at the threshols where previous solid wood threshold were nailed or screwed. The rooms go A to B to C.
B was originally carpeted... carpet and wheelchairs don't go well together. A and C had laminate flooring. I changed B to laminate about a year ago disturbing the thresholds and creating new flatter ones for the wheel chair.
Obviously were all the rooms done at once I'd have prepared the threshold suitably and probably avoided the problem, but with laminate flooring it's difficult to take up a small area and I don't want to lift almost 3 rooms of the stuff!
Del