Carpet underlay, underlay

[sammy_h]

yeee, hah!

Ok, those two underlay's in the title were not a mistake.

I'm about to lay new carpet over a structural pine floor. In the areas of the house that currently have just polished pine, there are plenty of creaks and squeaks when you walk around.

In the last room that still has carpet (and underlay), the squeaking and creaking is ok, so I assume the presence of underlay eliminates most of them.

I am thinking of laying down a solid substrate before the new underlay and carpet go down, to minimise squeaking, and also to raise the floor level a little more. We will eventually lay tiles in the hallways that run past the carpeted rooms, so the levels would be a bit more consistent.

What would be the best thing to lay down, considering both price and ease of installation?

Masonite, MDF?

[bennylaird]

If you have access under the floor it would be cheaper to put wedges in to stop the creaking from the source?

[MurrayD99]

I don't believe the underlay effectively stops creaking - might damp it down a bit. Our upstairs was really bad. I went around when the carpet was being replaced and screwed the floor down (with feeling) to stop the movement. Benny's wedge approach is good if you can get at the joists. Someone had another idea - like a lube job along the joints... talcum powder? Not sure about that.

[chrise]

My mate the carpet layer (30 years in the trade and his knees are still ok if you can call them knees) is sitting next to me as I type this and he has just said that no amount of underlay etc will fix creaky floor boards. The boards need to be packed out (wedges) from below or re nailed from the top. You can also go around the creaky ones and make sure the existing nails have not worked them selves up a tad making the boards loose. Re punch the nails if this is the case.

Now an old carpet layers trick he is telling me is to sprinkle powder (baby powder etc) between the cracks and this will in a lot of cases stop the creaks for a short time.