As flooring contractor Patrick Hunt treads across the parlor of the
1860s farmhouse that his parents are restoring, a chorus of loud chirps
and squeaks rises up from the plain-sawn white oak strips beneath his
feet. "Beautiful to look at," he says. "But what a racket."
In 17th-century Japan, the shoguns valued (and deliberately built)
squeaky "nightingale floors" as early warning systems against palace
intruders. But Hunt, who with his crew installed the oak and pine in
TOH's project house in Billerica, is hardly concerned with thwarting
assasins. He just wants to restore a measure of quiet and solidity to
the house. "Eighty percent of the time you're hearing wood rubbing
against a nail," Hunt says, shifing his weight and evincing a groan from
one ornery board. "These floorboards swell and contract regularly with
the changing seasons, so the nails, the boards, and even the subflooring
loosen up, causing something to rub against something else."
Silencing squeaks is generally a simple matter. "In most cases, you can
face-nail the boards back in place," he says. If that doesn't work,
lubing them with powder, gluing them back in place, or shimming them
tight may squelch the squawks. But a floor that's spongy or sagging
could be a sign of serious damage or structural deficiencies, requiring
him to shore up the joists or replace the flooring.
Thankfully, this is not a worry at his parents' place. After driving
in a few nails, he takes a stroll to test for sounds. Hearing a few
sighs, he smiles. "I'll leave those," he says. "Someone else might
call them creaks. But to me, that's charm."
