Reply #34: A couple of ideas... [View All]

If it's on the first floor and you have a basement and the floor joists are exposed....have someone walk on the squeak and locate it from underneath. You could then use some shakers (from lowes) and shim underlayment where it rests on the joist. Or, you'll need to add some cross braces - cheap too.

If you can't get underneath, and the carpet is umm, older, you could try a finishing nail right thru the carpet. Sounds cheesy, but it works - trick is to ensure you're driving it into the joist from above and you'll want to penetrate the carpet material - use a nail punch. A flooring nail has a larger head that will not go thru the carpet, but is ok if you have a decent pile - (and definitely not a berber). The nail needs to go as far down as possible so it doesn't protrude.

I did the bracing trick - we have hw floors, but the carpeted floors are not hw - the builder told us they wouldn't squeak (liar), so I wound up doing extra work. I also found that walking caused some vibration of the duct work, and that made a sound, so in this case it wasn't the floor squeaking.