Squeaking Tongue and Groove Fix

Question

I live in a log house with tongue-and-groove floors. The downstairs floor is prefinished and sits on a plywood subfloor with a thin foam layer in between.

However, the upstairs floor, while thicker, was unfinished and spans beams. We had to polyurethane it ourselves. The house is now about 10 years old and there are two boards that the person in the bedroom frequently have to walk across and they squeak now.

It's two boards and it's at the end of the board. I'm looking for the best, least visible solution to fix the squeaking. I haven't looked yet, but I'm sure I can get to the underside of the board from downstairs. The upstairs floor is the downstairs ceiling. It wasn't a good idea in retrospect, but it's what we're dealing with. There isn't a large crack do get into to do repair work. If there was, and there was something underneath that edge, I'd think just screwing it down would be the answer. I suppose if I had to, and there was a beam under the edge, I could screw from the top down and put wood putty over the screw head, but I think that would look bad.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to correctly fix this issue? Thanks. I'll try to find out whether or not there is a beam directly under the edge of the two boards or whether they're hanging out over open space and post back here tomorrow.

Answer 1

Usually the solution is to drive a fastener into the joist. This can be done from above but is very visible, though if it is a non-obvious spot might not be a big deal. Normally you can't see the floor from the level below so using a screw in a toe-nail fashion isn't a visibility problem. However in your case, you can see the floor so you want something non-obvious. A pocket screw would be a great solution to this problem as it will give you the hold you need without the screw being visible. You can purchase pre-made pocket screw hole plugs in a variety of wood types to completely hide the hole once you are finished.

Answer 2

it sounds like the boards making up the floor didn't always 'end' on a joist? My first attempt would be to see if you can get a small wedge between the board and the nearest joist(s) and see if that stiffens it up enough. If not I would try to put a brace under the joint from below, if it is visible you might want to make it decorative like a little arch or something.