Creaky stairs

[StepOne]

Hi,

We have just moved house, and the new property has an extremely creaky set of stairs. The house is upside down - with living area at the top and the stairs lead down to the bedrooms. As soon as one person gets up in the morning and goes up stairs, it wakes every one else they are so noisy! The house (and I guess the stairs) is about 50 years old.

I can get access to the underneath of the bottom half of the staircase, which is the worst part. It looks as though people in the past have tried to to things to fix the problem. There is some sort of clear sealant around all the gaps at the edges and small wedges at some of the joins where treads meet risers. There is no stringer, which I thought was a bit odd, especially as the staircase is wider than normal - maybe close to a metre wide. There is just a single piece of timber (2x2?) running down the middle of the stairs, but not actually attached to any of the stair parts. It seems like it is not original, but I'm not sure I can see the point of it.

Having watched some Youtube videos, I have tried putting screws through the bottoms of some of the risers, into the back of the treads and also in from the top of the treads to the risers below. This second step proved tricky as the risers are quite thin (5mm I guess) and so it's hard to get the screw in the right place without missing the riser, which I can see has happened in the past.

Nothing I've done has made any difference.

I'm now considering screwing supports underneath the treads - maybe a piece of 2 by 4 behind each riser - screwed into the wooden sides underneath the stairs, and then screw in through the top of the treads. Or possibly even replacing the risers with something more substantial which might stop the treads flexing.

Does anyone have any view on whether this will work, or able to suggest anything else that I should do?

Thanks,
StepOne

[redsturgeon]

I honestly think that a new staircase is the only answer. It sounds like this staircase has been poorly designed and constructed and the past attempts at rectifying the problem are testament to the failure of partial solutions.

John

[greenrobbie]

Our house is the same age and also had very noisy stairs. During a substantial extension and refurbishment programme last year, the builders glued wedges and re-screwed some of the risers and treads from below. This improved matters - for a while. The creaking is returning, and I wish now we had arranged to have a new staircase installed instead.

[Tempi]

A traditional stair construction would have a 'scotia' (a fancy piece of beading) in the 90 degree angle underneath the nosing to the top of the riser below. This would be there to support and stop the staircase from squeaking/flexing.

Once working on a major house project with a large sweeping staircase, the client required these scotias to be removed as they wanted the carpet to sit flush with the whole of the riser and be pinned in underneath the nosing. The stair construction company (after issuing warnings about squeaking noises over time) removed the scotias and screwed diagonally up through the top of the riser into the underneath of the tread above, at about 100mm intervals.

That may help?

or, depending on your carpet fitting preferences, put some scotia back in (glued and pinned), depending on the size of nosing.... I would see no reason why you couldn't do this from underneath the stairs, at the back of the riser where it meets the underside of the tread? We couldn't do this on the house project as the under stair ceiling on both stair flights had been plastered and was a curved shape (it was deemed too complicated, to costly and to expensive in time to do again.)

[MyNameIsUrl]

The risers generally have a tongue which goes upwards into the underside of the tread. As the wood shrinks with age, the tongue comes partially out of the groove, and weight on the tread can move it downwards so the tongue is slip-sliding in the groove, making the creak.

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

[StepOne]

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

What do you mean by timber blocks? There are currently triangular wedges behind the stairs which appear to be nailed to the treads. I've attached a photo I took which shows them and you can also see the sealant around the joins and if you zoom in you can see one screw which was put in the top of the tread and totally missed the riser.

I'm thinking about removing these blocks and replacing with a square piece of timber the full width of the stair, then screwing into that timber through both the tread and the riser.

I was also wondering whether it would be possible to fit a stringer down the centre although would have to be made to measure I guess...

Photo if it works;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlqP4Us57ye5hacwja2k82_JUV8x0Q

[ClaudiusTheIdiot]

Can you get one person to move their weight on and off a stair while the other goes underneath to try pressing against different bits and listening?

[redsturgeon]

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

What do you mean by timber blocks? There are currently triangular wedges behind the stairs which appear to be nailed to the treads. I've attached a photo I took which shows them and you can also see the sealant around the joins and if you zoom in you can see one screw which was put in the top of the tread and totally missed the riser.

I'm thinking about removing these blocks and replacing with a square piece of timber the full width of the stair, then screwing into that timber through both the tread and the riser.

I was also wondering whether it would be possible to fit a stringer down the centre although would have to be made to measure I guess...

Photo if it works;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlqP4Us57ye5hacwja2k82_JUV8x0Q

OMG that looks like a horrible botch job!

I still say that I don't think you will solve the problem without a lot of reworking which might actually not ever work anyway.

John

[Charlottesquare]

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

What do you mean by timber blocks? There are currently triangular wedges behind the stairs which appear to be nailed to the treads. I've attached a photo I took which shows them and you can also see the sealant around the joins and if you zoom in you can see one screw which was put in the top of the tread and totally missed the riser.

I'm thinking about removing these blocks and replacing with a square piece of timber the full width of the stair, then screwing into that timber through both the tread and the riser.

I was also wondering whether it would be possible to fit a stringer down the centre although would have to be made to measure I guess...

Photo if it works;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlqP4Us57ye5hacwja2k82_JUV8x0Q

On the underside something like 50 x 70 or 70 x70 under each tread, cut tight so snug and attached tight at each side by metal angle plates screwed to sides of steps below the stairs and then screwed tight from above through the tread might stop the movement.

Find the worst step re volume and try bracing it with something substantial. The catch with the blocks is they are only reinforcing the nose of each tread but the weight will be deeper into the tread when climbing up or down. In effect you possibly need a more rigid construction further back across the middle of the tread.

Something like these might help.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/sabrefix-hea ... 3god6HcOEA

[StepOne]

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

What do you mean by timber blocks? There are currently triangular wedges behind the stairs which appear to be nailed to the treads. I've attached a photo I took which shows them and you can also see the sealant around the joins and if you zoom in you can see one screw which was put in the top of the tread and totally missed the riser.

I'm thinking about removing these blocks and replacing with a square piece of timber the full width of the stair, then screwing into that timber through both the tread and the riser.

I was also wondering whether it would be possible to fit a stringer down the centre although would have to be made to measure I guess...

Photo if it works;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlqP4Us57ye5hacwja2k82_JUV8x0Q

OMG that looks like a horrible botch job!

I still say that I don't think you will solve the problem without a lot of reworking which might actually not ever work anyway.

John

Thanks John - saw you and Robbie saying that, and I suspect you may be right. Think I will probably give it one more try with timber battens screwed in to a couple of the noisiest steps and see if it helps. If not, will ask my builder about cost/hassle to replace.

Has anyone ever seen the film 'The Money Pit'

[MyNameIsUrl]

Obviously you need to prevent this movement, and if the gap is small, screws through the top of the tread into the riser will pull it up tight. If the gap is bigger, timber blocks behind each riser should fix it - but you need to stop the relative movement by gluing/screwing to both the tread and the riser. Fixing to the wooden sides won't be as effective.

What do you mean by timber blocks? There are currently triangular wedges behind the stairs which appear to be nailed to the treads. I've attached a photo I took which shows them and you can also see the sealant around the joins and if you zoom in you can see one screw which was put in the top of the tread and totally missed the riser.

I'm thinking about removing these blocks and replacing with a square piece of timber the full width of the stair, then screwing into that timber through both the tread and the riser.

I was also wondering whether it would be possible to fit a stringer down the centre although would have to be made to measure I guess...

Photo if it works;

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlqP4Us57ye5hacwja2k82_JUV8x0Q

By timber blocks I meant the same as you are describing in a later post as timber battens, ie a full-width length of timber (say 3x2?) screwed through both tread and riser. From the photo it looks like someone has understood the source of the creaking, but failed to realise the solution lies in stopping relative movement - silicone sealant is designed to be flexible...

Regarding fitting a stringer, you could consider something like a length of steel box section, braced up underneath each each tread with a triangle of thick plywood. Depends on how much space you have.

[jfgw]

There is no stringer, which I thought was a bit odd, especially as the staircase is wider than normal - maybe close to a metre wide.

I assume that you mean that there is no third stringer in the middle. I can clearly see one stringer in the photograph. I don't know how wide a staircase needs to be before an extra one is fitted but I suspect that it is very unusual.

If you replace the wood blocks, use a number of small blocks (about 3" long) rather than one long one - it will be difficult to get a long piece of wood to make close contact along its entire length. They must fit snugly. Smother glue over the two edges that will go up against the riser and tread and rub them into the joint so that the glue squishes out before fixing them into place.

I can't see that the 2x2 piece is doing much other than providing an extra piece of wood for the steps to creak against.

Check that the steps and risers are solidly wedged into the strings (or stringers - both terms are used). The wedges in the string visible in the photograph look ok but, if any are not doing their job, they will need to be refitted (or replaced if damaged).

Julian F. G. W.