The sound happens when a plank becomes loose and the nail rubs against the subfloor.
Loud floors in basement.
Sometimes you might walk across your floors and hear a popping or creaking noise.
If the wood floor is above an unfinished basement or crawl space fixing squeaky creaky floors becomes simpler.
When you hear a squeak have the person above rap on the floor so you can pinpoint the exact spot.
It does require floor prep to smooth the floor otherwise the surface of the sub floor will telegraph through within 6 months.
Floating wood floors typically require that the substrate or subfloor be flat to within a certain tolerance.
If the floor is over a basement or crawl space go below to make the repairs.
If you have a noisy floating floor and you have removed all your moldings and baseboards and find there are still proper expansion gaps you may have a floor prep issue.
If your floors are nailed down to the subfloor the popping noise could be coming from the nails.
Also usually sheet vinyl comes in 12 foot rolls and if your basement is wider than 12 ft you ll need to have a seam and buy extra vinyl to cover the area and make sure you order enough extra so that the can match the pattern repeat.
While this doesn t mean your floors are defective there are various reasons it can occur.
Start by having someone walk across the floor while you listen from below.
Nwfa installation guidelines say most manufacturers recommend a flatness tolerance of 1 8 inch in a 6 foot radius or 3 16 inch in a 10 foot radius.
In most cases you ll have a hollow cavity.
Next take a thin wood shim and coat it with carpenter s glue.
When people are walking upstairs you can hear the echoes reverberating which can get very loud for tenants living in the basement.