How do I stop a click floor creaking and crackling?

A floating floor is not fixed to anything, so any noise it makes is friction — board against board, board against underlay, or underlay against a subfloor that is not flat.

What you'll need

• A long straight edge or a spirit level
• A pry bar
• Talcum powder
• Levelling compound or packers
• A vacuum

Step by step

1. Locate the noise precisely.Walk the floor slowly and mark every noisy spot with masking tape. A pattern — along one wall, in a line, at the doorway — tells you far more than a single point.
2. Check the subfloor flatness.A straight edge across the noisy area. Most floating floors need the subfloor flat within about 3mm over 2 metres. A hollow lets the boards flex and click at every step.
3. Suspect the perimeter first.A floor rubbing on the skirting, on beading pinned too tight, or on a pipe collar creaks in a way that sounds like it comes from the middle of the room.
4. Check for a pinched floor.A floor under compression from no expansion gap creaks continuously as the boards work against each other. Trim the perimeter first if that is what you find.
5. Listen for grit.A sharp crackle rather than a creak often means grit or a screw head between the underlay and the boards. Common where a floor was laid without vacuuming first.
6. Try talcum powder in the joints.Brushed into the board joints and worked in with a cloth. It reduces board-against-board friction and cures a surprising number of creaks with no disruption at all.
7. Lift the perimeter to reach a bad area.Click boards can usually be unclicked from the nearest wall row by row and relaid. It is tedious but not difficult.
8. Fix the subfloor rather than the floor.Fill hollows with levelling compound or pack with hardboard, and screw down any loose chipboard sheets, before relaying.
9. Check the underlay is right.Underlay that is too soft or too thick lets the boards flex and click. Most manufacturers specify a maximum thickness — often 3mm — for exactly this reason.
10. Check the doorway.A threshold strip screwed through the boards, or a door frame bearing on the floor, produces a very localised creak at every crossing.

Tips

• Vacuum thoroughly before laying any floating floor. A single screw or a handful of grit under the underlay produces a click that is very hard to find afterwards.
• Noise that appears only when the heating is on is usually expansion. Noise that is constant is usually the subfloor.
• Talcum powder is a genuinely effective first attempt and costs nothing. Try it before lifting anything.

Common mistakes

• Doubling up the underlay to quieten a floor — Extra underlay makes the floor softer and increases the amount the boards flex under foot, which loads the locking joints and usually makes the noise worse rather than better.
• Screwing a noisy floating floor down — It stops the boards moving at that point but not elsewhere, so the floor now expands against a fixed point and peaks or gaps. Floating floors have to remain floating.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask