Have you ever had a buyer who walks on a floor that squeaks and steps back and forth - squeak - squeak - and then glares at you as if to say, "who built this house?" or "I can't stand squeaks" or "I'll negotiate this deal starting with shoddy construction".
I've got a solution that has a very good chance of eliminating all the under-carpet squeaks and the home-owner can "do it himself".
I don't often promote products on my blog but this one works so well (from personal experience) that I thought I'd pass along the tip.
The product is called "Squeeeek No More®" from O'Berry Enterprises, Inc., Ringwood, IL. It's a kit that can be ordered on line or from your favorite hardward store - the Ace Hardward store near me knew about the product but had to order it - it came in three days and I saved on the shipping costs.
I've found it works best on carpeted floors that have a plywood base. When my wife and I built our house 9 years ago, there were no squeeks but over the years, several appeared in the high traffic areas of our master bedroom.
I first read about the device in "This Old House" magazine and after reading the review, went ahead and ordered the kit. You can view a video explaining how the system works at http://www.floorscrews.com
As you can see from the video, the kit consists of (1) a triangular jig that makes it easy to stop drilling the screw into the carpet a just the right depth to secure the sub-floor to the floor joist yet not protrude above the plywood and leave a sharp screw end (2) A special drill bit for the screw and jig (3) 50 special scored screws approx. 3" long that allow you to break off the screw after drilling into the carpet and plywood and floor joist.
There's even a special joist finding screw that you can use to accurately find a floor joist to drill into - and that's key because you need to fasten the plywood into the joist.
I found that I needed about 30 screws (out of 50 supplied) to completely eliminate all the squeaks. Since the floor joists are supposed to be 16" on center, all you need to do is carefully measured from a known floor joist to the next, and place screws about 4" apart until the squeak disappears and just like majic, you've eliminated an annoying noise that could kill a deal or at the least, make you and your buyer uncomfortable - you don't need a buyer focusing on a squeak when it can be fixed for less than $25.00.
The kit can be purchased from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/n6cw7z
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