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Hi

New to the forum but hopefully someone out there can help before I go insane :x :x . Also hope I have posted in the right place?

I live in what I beleive is a Wimpy?? home which is traditional brick and block exterior build but we have Steel stud interior walls.

These walls particularly in one of the bedrooms squeak when you walk in to the room. The squeaking seems to eminate from the base of the wall presumably where the track for the stud wall is screwed to the floor. The squeaking sounds like metal scrapping up and down as pressure is applied to the flooring.

Any one with any experience of this and suggestions of a cure, will save me from near certain insanity. As my son gets older, the prospect of him putting on enough weight to make the noise when he goes in to the room is not worth thinking about.

Cheers

Steve

an all too common problem unfortunately. i get a lot of requests from people to try and fix this.

it's usually caused by floor joists flexing as you walk on them. this creates a slight separation between the floor and the wall - you say it sounds like metal on metal and that is quite likely. the fixing screw or nail holding the steel joist to the floor will be moving with the floor and scraping on the steel joist.

a very difficult, often impossible problem to remedy. you could try packing under the steel joist but to be honest you are not likely to find a satisfactory solution i'm afraid. not, at least, without a lot of work. one customer asked if i could pull the wall down and start again with new joists etc. i said no as there was no guarantee that the same wouldn't happen.

you say that you think it's a wimpey house so it's probably fairly new and built with 6 inch joists instead of 7 or 9 inch - done for cheapness and unfortunately the thinner joists have a good deal more flex in them.

Hi Chris

Really appreciate you taking the time to respond, clearly your in the trade as it were. It is I beleive a Wimpy home but probably about 11 years old now. Would the joist size still be relevant?

You mentioned packing out the gap between the C Frame runner of the stud work and the floor, any suggestions on what to pack it with? I have to try and reduce it if nothing else. :?

Cheers

11 year old wimpey house you've almost certainly got 6 inch joists.

you could try shimming the wall, not too difficult, lift the floor covering to expose the sub floor. have a look at where the wall meets the floor. is there a gap? you might need someone to walk around on the floor to see if any movement.

often there will be a gap visible even under the skirting. get some plastic shims in various thicknesses (most builders merchants will stock them) and pack out the gap between the floor and the base of the wall - under the stud and nice n' tight. better still use metal shims if you can get them.

have a couple of people stood either side of the wall as you do it - otherwise the shims will simply come loose and slide about.

like i say it's not a perfect fix, but it's something that can be done in minutes with minimal mess. in other words it's quick, cheap and worth at try. hopefully it will at least reduce the squeaking. i did this for a customer who has a 2-year-old who barely slept. driving the poor lady mad as she'd wake her baby every time she went into the bedroom the squeaking was that bad. i was able to reduce but not eliminate the problem with this method.

other options are to stiffen the floor joists with steel braces. this would be quite a job however. you'd need to pull up the sub floor (probably large boards rather than the more traditional 180mm wide floorboards so a bit of a faff) or get access through the ceiling below.

or pull the wall down and reinstall. but none are guaranteed fixes i'm afraid.

Many thanks for the info

We have laminate floor upstairs which doesn't help. When I do change it for carpet, I'll do the shims me thinks. many thanks

Out of interest, ours is a Semi....

Don't suppose you know what the party internal wall construction method is for Wimpey of that era?

Can't do much a bout it but they seem to be thin also (just one layer of breeze block??)

Sometimes, the neighbours may as well be in with us.

Cheers

Steve

should be a double skin for a party wall - might be cavity, probably breeze block/

Just a quick note. Has the wall always made this noise? I have in the past had the same problem in a house and it was caused by the laminate flooring having expanded its full potential and cos it was tight against the wall was putting pressure on the wall. When I took 10mm off the laminate to give it its 10mm expansion gap again it stopped. Remove the beading and check to see if the laminate it pressed agaist the wall, this may be the cause. Hope I've been helpful
Mike

quite right mike, eliminate the obvious first!

i could have been over thinking the problem on this occasion, it could be something as simple as lifted laminate scraping on the wall.

i have a hunch tho that my suspicions will be confirmed. i've encounted such an issue on a few new or recent builds.

The edge beading is unfortunatly glued to the skirting board so not easy to check unless I take the plunge and switch to carpet which I can't aford at the moment.

To be fair though, the noise is very metallic in sound, and occasionally sounds like it is coming from within and further up the wall and not ground level.

Nonetheless, you never no, when I do take th eplunge it be that simple but suspect not because of the above.

Cheers

Hi again
I might have been misunderstood a little. When the floor expanded on a job I worked on, the noise didn't come from the floor but from the wall itself. Due to the floor expanding it was pushed against the wall tight. Since the floor has expanded to its full potential after it has pushed the wall to its max without it falling down it will start to lift. Lets say your floor has lifted 0.5mm (not enough to notice) when you walk on the floor that 0.5mm gets pushed down and the floor in turn tries to expand into the wall a further 0.5mm. Since the floor is now touching the wall, and force on the floor (walking on it) will result in more force on the wall.
When this happened on the job i was working on it made a grinding noise about 1 metre up the wall.
I know this way not be the case on your house and is probably as stated earlier. But just thought before you start rebuilding walls it might be an option to check. The beading will still come off with ease and be restuck with no nails, mitre glue or pins.

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