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I am not talking about laminate planks, but actual subfloor sections. My entire room consists of tongue-and-groove boards. I was under the impression that the point of this was so you didn't have to fasten them to joists with nails or screws, but all of mine are nailed in. Pulling up the nails is not a problem, but being able to lift up a section of floor without damaging the tongue (which I have done prior to figuring this out the hard way).

Are the tongues necessary? Can I just take my circular saw right between the boards, cut them way, and then screw them back down afterward?

I am doing remodeling and think I have a squeaky joist. I want to tend to it before putting an underlayment over it. If someone can tell me how to secure a potentially squeaky joist through the top of the subfloor and not from below then I will change the title of this question and mark you as the answer.

oscilatingcretin
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1 Answers1

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Are the tongues necessary? Can I just take my circular saw right between the boards, cut them way, and then screw them back down afterward?

You've been misinformed. The point of tongue-in-groove planking is to keep the floor boards from twisting, slipping and sliding against each other and squeaking (or squeaking more in your case). You still need to secure a tongue-in-groove floor to the subfloor or joists.

Joists almost never squeak on their own. Squeaking comes from two pieces of wood rubbing against each other - usually because a floor hasn't been adequately secured.

Now if you DO need to cut away the flooring, then you should cut along the seams, and then buy Hardwood Floor Spline and rout out the old tongue so you end up with two grooves facing each other, and use the spline to rejoin the flooring when you reattach it.

But BEFORE you do that, I'd get a bunch of 2" coated screws and drop them through the subfloor into the joists below and see if that fixes the squeak. It's subfloor so you don't care about the face, and if it doesn't work, they're easily removed.

*Tip - use a hammerdrill when putting in the screws

The Evil Greebo
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