Why wooden floors creak always?

If the answer to this question is a question in one sentence, is the main cause of creaking wooden floors - boards deformation, But because of what she, in turn, arose - scope of this article.

Most often, the deformation leads to the fact that the floor boards are displaced and rub against each other, so that there are several reasons:

• Aging wood.
  It is quite a natural process, because the wood is like a living organism - it is still able to absorb the moisture present in the air, and dry at high temperatures.
• Improper installation of boards.
  This reason has less obvious. Leader among the most common errors - there is no play between the boards and the walls of the house (on the perimeter of the room). Expanding, the board will be "run down" on each other and on the walls of the room, causing a creak.
• Drying of wood.
  Surely you do not have an instrument for measuring humidity boards, but be aware that the optimal moisture content of wood - 12%. If the humidity in the house low, the board will shrink in size and creak in places of attachment to the joists.
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• Poor attachment boards.
  If the boards are fixed with nails small size, or they are not clogged vertically, because the load on the floor, nails can go outside of the board "feel" free and start to creak.

These are the main reasons for the floor creaking.
To summarize: if you do at home with wooden floors, remember to maintain optimum humidity in the room, and that the tree grows old and 15-20 years may have to replace the floor. When mounting leave 1.5-2 cm gap between the boards and walls - give the boards expand freely and drive a nail size 100-150 perpendicular to the surface of the board and not in the region lags.