Fix Squeaky Stairs Through Carpet: If your carpeted stairs are creaking, you don't have to remove the carpet to repair the creak. The best repair for creaking floorboards is to locate the nearby floor joists and drive a screw or nail through the carpet into each joist near the creak.
Find the Squeak
Before you can fix a squeaky wooden stair, you’ll need to find where the squeak is coming from. The location of the squeak may also dictate the type of repair you do. Slowly climb your stairs and note which steps have squeaks and where the squeak is coming from exactly, marking each with masking tape or a sticky note. Then, stand in the middle of each squeaky step and rock front-to-back and side-to-side to determine if the noise is coming from the side, the back, or the front.
Typically, if the squeak comes from the back of a step, this means it is loose from its riser. If the squeak comes from either side, it usually means the step is loose at its stringer.
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Why Are My Stairs Squeaky?
If your stairs have suddenly started to squeak, you might be wondering why that is. After all, you’ve not done anything differently, so why are the stairs suddenly complaining whenever anybody walks up or down them?
Well, you’ll be pleased to know that it isn’t personal. Stairs just loosen with time and begin to squeak and creak as we walk on them. The noise is created by wood and nails rubbing on one another, or the wooden tread rubbing against the risers. This rubbing is caused by the inevitable loosening of screws over time as well as the contraction and expansion of wood throughout the year.
Your stairs squeaking isn’t generally a cause for concern. It is rare that a squeaky or creaky staircase is on its way out. But whilst it may not be an emergency, it can be really irritating.
Why Do Stairs Squeak?
With all the wooden parts, it’s pretty much inevitable that stairs will eventually start to squeak. Unlike our own ever-tightening joints, age tends to bring looseness in stairs. This causes the wooden treads to rub against the risers and stringers, and all of it to grind against the nails and screws that hold it all together.
In addition to simply being walked on, seasonal contractions and expansions of the wood further contribute to the loosening of the joints. It can all add up to a heck of a racket. Stairs that were constructed with glue in addition to nails and screws—less common the older your house is—generally are less prone to squeaking, but wear and time do tend to take their toll.
So what do you do to beat the squeak? Most of the time it really isn’t a difficult problem to fix. The noise doesn’t mean your stairs are necessarily about to fall down; they just need tightening up.
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Fixing Carpeted Squeaking Stairs
If you have carpeted stairs, it’ll be trickier to fix them with nails or screws. You can put holes in the carpet or tear it.
You’ll have to remove the carpeting entirely (a long and challenging process) or purchase a special kit that works on the treads without affecting the carpet. Unfortunately, this is the only solution for carpeted stairs.
These kits have special screws that drive into the flooring without damaging the carpet fibers.
How to fix squeaky stairs: What's a riser and tread?
Stairs consist of a number of components but it's typically two parts – riser and tread – that need to be dealt with when trying to stop the squeak. A stair riser is the vertical piece of wood that acts like a back board and is nailed into the back of a tread to provide support for the next tread above.
A stair tread meanwhile is the horizontal part of the step, the part that you step or tread on as you go up or down the stairs. Armed with this information, take a look at the three options below to fix the creak in your stairs. It's worth reading all three before deciding which option is the best route for fixing your creak.
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Repairing creaking stairs from underneath
Fixing the creak from underneath the stairs provides the sturdiest results and is actually the easiest method, particularly if your stairs are carpeted. If you can access the area under your stairs, you’re in good shape.
What you’ll need:
- Triangular wooden glue blocks/wedges
- Wood glue
- Electric drill and screws
What you’ll do:
- For each creaking step, you’ll need three glue blocks.
- Apply wood glue liberally to each square side of the block.
- Press the glued sides of the block on the underside of the right angle where the riser meets the tread.
- Place one block in the center of the step and one on each side of the step on the inside of the wall or stringer.
- Once adhered with glue, insert two screws into each block, one vertically into the tread and one horizontally into the riser.