What Causes Noisy Wood Flooring

Here is just one of the causes that will create noise on a wood floor.  Anytime there is vertical movement within the wood floor system noise will occur.  When the floor is depressed through walking on, this allows vertical movement, resulting in noise heard, and often results in a concern voiced by the owner to the seller/contractor.

Flooring noise can be of multiple causes however in the attached video shows where the tongue side of the plank is well secured and the groove side is allowed to move vertically.  This is caused from the milling (side match) being misaligned and allowing the wood floor to move.  You will see the groove side of the plank is not resting tight against the subfloor the way it supposed to be.  As you can see in the diagram the space is to be above the tongue, not below the tongue.  The amount of space above the tongue would be per manufacture specification and typically runs between .005" to .015".

The only way to determine this noise condition is through destructive testing, removing a section of the flooring to have 100% identification.

National Wood Floor Consultants takes the extra time during all of our inspections to find the causation of the noise related concerns or any other concern.  

National Wood Floor Consultants
19989 East Bethel Blvd. Cedar, MN
763-413-7897 
www.NWFC.net