Here’s the easiest way to know if you have wood floors: If the room has a floor vent, remove it {they’re rarely screwed in} & carefully push your fingers under the pad to lift & reveal. Remember many types of carpeting have a weave or “grain” to the carpet fibers that might be apparent if two adjacent pieces of carpeting are installed at right angles to each other. Locating the joist under a carpeted floor is a little harder than finding it under hardwood. Joists have the same dimensions as wall plates, but they are laid on edge and run at right angles to the wall plates and about 400mm apart. How to Use a Stud Finder to Find Stud Joists Through Carpet Step 1 - Buying the Correct Type of Stud Finder. Find the Joist Location. You need cushioning between the subfloor and the floor covering, but the padding type varies for the floor coverings listed below. Tap a wood shim into the gap above the floor joist after smearing the shim with carpenter’s glue. It is very easy to operate, and requires only the use of a single button. If you’re nervous about drilling screws into your carpet floor, you can purchase a kit, like The Squeeeeek-No-More Kit, to make the job easier. If you can feel a soft spot in the floor under the carpet, the subfloor has likely been weakened or damaged. This isn't the same as having a floor squeak when you step on it, which simply indicates that the subfloor isn't tightly fastened to the floor joist in one area. Carpet Padding. The Best Stud Finder For Floor Joists Franklin Sensors FS710+ Professional stud finder. Step 6 - Begin Scanning for Joists. Set the nail below the surface with the proper sized nail set, and fill with a colored putty. I’m about ready to use the commercial product, “Squeeeeek No More” (Home Depot, etc.) Most homeowners want a padding with a thickness between 4/16 and 7/16 inch. If you've got a hardwood floor, you can obviously skip this step and go straight to finding the joists. With the vent removed, you have a wide, clear view of a cross-section of your floor. Ventilation The whole of the ground floor should be constructed to allow air to travel freely around under the timber floor. Lets say you are going to 125 gals. The obvious one is to pull up the carpet and pad, screw the subfloor to the floor joists and replace the carpet. Floor heating vent: Removing a floor HVAC vent is the best way to check for total floor thickness. While planning to uncover the original hardwood floor, I pulled back the corner of the carpet to find that the padding was stapled down, and not glued to the floor. Modern floor joists are less than 2″ wide so they are easy to miss, and you can tell when you are hitting the joists when the nails feels solid all the way in. Even the deep scan one work on density, so if you have double sheet rock or plaster they'll work, but they can't tell the difference between wood and wood. This prevents having one long seam running the length of a joist which can create a weak spot in the floor. Q. I wrote to you earlier that our house, built in the 1950s, has very squeaky wooden flooring that can’t be accessed from below. Squeaks and creaks under carpeting are caused by movement in the subfloor against a floor joist or loose nail. But because I didn’t know how to figure out where the joists for the floor are located, it helped only a little. Step 7 - Locate the Joist Under the Carpet. Use a stud finder Tap the carpet with a hammer to find the difference in sound over the joist and adjacent empty bay; Utilize … Some people just LOVE carpet. Remove the carpet over the squeaky area, if necessary. Once you’ve determined the joist direction you have three ways to find its location under the carpet. Then, fill the holes with wood filler. If the floor is a suspended wooden floor, you will probably be able to see wooden joists and the undersides of the floorboards. Repeat this process every 12 inches down the floor joists on either side of the squeak. If you've got a squeaky and carpeted floor, however, you've got to make the decision to either cut a small strip of it up to install under or use screws that can be used through carpeting. Signs include discolored joists and subfloor or, if there's a ceiling, spots in the drywall. Be sure to work an area a couple feet wider and longer than the squeaks. When you finish, the squeaks will be gone and there will be no sign of all those screws. You can do the removal and the screwing, but we recommend you hire a carpet … If the floor is sagging at 75 gallons, going larger may be a disaster in waiting. Make sure you also buy the same type of joist. If it gives easily, the timber is rotten and will need to be replaced. Planning to remove carpet over hardwood floors. Continue the process down each of the floor joist. You’ll need a high-quality electronic stud finder with a deep scanning option. If you have access underneath the floor, you can fix squeaks using wooden shims. Any stud finder will read a sheet of plywood as a whole gang of joist. Its purpose is to provide a smooth, flat surface for the floor covering. Using a stud finder, locate the floor joist beneath the carpet in the area of the squeak. Countersink the screw head into the subfloor. Step 5 - Calibrate the Stud Finder. Finding the joists under a squeaky floor. Signs of dampness can include: rot, musty smells, borer, persistent condensation, mildew, mould, sagging floor joists, sagging and swelling particleboard floors, bubbling under vinyl flooring, carpet rot, corroding fasteners and metal fittings. Find a new floor joist with these exact same dimensions. Step 4 - Place the Stud Finder on the Floor. If the problem is caused by the floor's separating from the subfloor, drive two nails into the floor at opposite 45-degree angles. You can check timber for rot by pressing a screwdriver into it. When a floor dips under weight, usually that means that the joists are undersized (or compromised), or that there is no support like a load bearing wall under where you want to place the tank. In this case, I decided that was OK. Because getting rid of that carpet meant finding out what kind of hardwood floor was under there! When you can't get access to the floor joists from below, your only choice is to make the repairs from above. To fix a floor covered with deep-pile carpet, drive a wallboard screw through the carpet and pad into the floor joist. General home carpet padding types include waffle rubber, fiber, rebond, frothed foam and slab rubber. Step 1: Locate the joist. If you have central heat and/or air conditioning with floor vents, it is very easy to remove the vents by pulling them straight up. Needless to say, not all nails get driven straight or into the joists. Step 3 - Select the Correct Scanning Option. Working from Above. Once you’ve located the joist under the squeak, drive a 10d or 12d galvanized finish nail through the carpet and subfloor and into the floor joist. In our last house, even the kitchen & bath were covered in white carpeting. That is an extra 500 lbs. Unfortunately, only laminate was hidden below. Danny takes a look at foundation cracks under a carpet and helps sort out when to worry and when not to. Underlayment: Just under the visible floor covering is a layer of some kind of material, usually only about 1/4- or 1/2-inch thick. Use a colored latex putty that will dry hard if you plan on sanding the floor … The floor panels are nailed to the joists and edges with powerful air guns that will drive 4″ or 6″ nails at a rate of one or more per second. The easiest way to describe it is a brick pattern. If the uneven floor is due to floor joists that have warped or twisted over time or were incorrectly installed, the only way to level the floor is to remove the subflooring and shim the joists. Or if separating floor from subfloor is causing the creak, drive two nails at opposite 45-degree angles into joists, which you can locate with a stud finder. Use your floor plan to configure a carpet installation that produces the least amount of waste. Use a tape measure to measure the length, width, and height of your existing floor joist. Danny Lipford shares some tips on foundation cracks. If you don’t have access to the space underneath your house, you will need to lift a corner of the carpet and underlay to have a look. Joists usually run perpendicular to the front and rear walls of a home so check that direction first. Find a replacement joist that is the same size as your floor joist. Step 2 - Power On the Stud Finder. This 3-in-1 stud finder offers a built-in leveler and ruler for added value. You also may smell mold, especially if the floor is covered with carpet. I tried the product Squeeeeek No More at your suggestion. AND, if possible, how to further fix those annoying squeaks. For wood floors, locate the squeak, and drive a long finish nail into the floor so that it goes into the floor joist if possible (locate the floor joists with a stud sensor). If moisture is present, you're most likely to find it around lumps, which may be caused by wood springing off … 7 Use the drill/driver to drive a scored screw down through center of fixture until the screw bottoms out. This is the layer that you see and walk on. 5 Once you find a floor joist, measure over 16 inches and locate the next joist. Floor covering: This is the finished, visible flooring surface, such as hardwood planks, carpeting, ceramic tile, or vinyl. Finally come the floorboards or floor sheets. which has a … I believe the "quarter points" refers to staggering the seams that are parallel to the floor joists where the plywood butts up against each other. A sub scanner would work, but they're way more expensive. If your floor joist is an I-joist, for example, buy an I-joist. I'm having new carpet installed, but before I have them come over I wanted to screw down the floor, (I have few sqeaks) how can I find the joist under the sub floor, I have no pattern to follow either. The problem isn't the carpet, it's the wood under the carpet. This releases any trapped pad under the screw head and allows the carpet to lie flat. If you find it hard to determine if the floor dips or bows, you can set a marble or a small ball on the floor near one corner of the room, If the floor dips, the ball should roll to the lower area but If you suspect the floor bows, place the ball in the suspected high spot and see if it rolls away. 6 Press the tripod-shaped alignment and depth control fixture firmly into the carpet directly over the joist. Using an appropriately-chosen instrument (see below) probe suspect or visibly damaged wood beams, joists, rim joists, sill plates, even flooring or subflooring; we start this step in basements and crawl spaces but may find evidence to justify probing finished materials such as interior trim or wood floors. How about a new video on finding joists in the second story floor, under carpet, to fix floor squeaks? Watch this video tutorial to see how to check out foundation cracks below your carpet. 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