Creaking floors?

Has anyone had any experience with creaking floors?

Is this normal? Is there a do-it-yourself solution?

2010 ElkRidge QSRL. Floors in the entry (under vinyl flooring) creak pretty badly.

Seems like a single bad panel underneath....

Sean and Sheila

Creaking floors should not be ignored (sorry about the poetry). We had what was an annoying squeak in the bedroom floor, along with a little "lip" you could feel with your feet. Dealer ended up tearing apart most of the bedroom and the front cap to reinforce floor framing and repair the flooring. I may be mistaken, but it may have been a precursor to the overhang frame problems some have posted about. All's good, now.

We have a spot in the middle of the living area, and also in kitchen(seem to be in same line) that creak occasionally (not all the time!) We tried to have it looked at while under warranty, but we could not recreate the creak for the dealer to fix. It came back this spring. Not sure how to fix it when it's occasional. Really not that big a deal to me, my 2nd story stick/brick home (built new) had a few spots that did that, too.

Erika

Our creaking comes with warmer weather. When the floors are cold (cooler) the floor panels expand (no noise) and contract when warmer as with any stick built house that has a wood floor. Do you know (John) if this would be covered under an extended warranty? (we have the Gold all inclusive warranty) I'm pretty sure we are out of the factory warranty period...

Sean

SMDAT said:

Our creaking comes with warmer weather. When the floors are cold (cooler) the floor panels expand (no noise) and contract when warmer as with any stick built house that has a wood floor. Do you know (John) if this would be covered under an extended warranty? (we have the Gold all inclusive warranty) I'm pretty sure we are out of the factory warranty period...

Sean

Click to expand...

Fortunately, mine was discovered and repaired a month before the 1yr. HL warranty expired. If the problem can be traced to a frame defect, it might be. Depends on what your extended warranty says. Try calling the underwriter for details.

And there is always the possibility that HL will step up if it is an assembly problem. First step is to root cause the problem.

Hey John, you said that you had a "lip" in your bedroom floor? We also have a 1/4 to 1/2 lip under the carpet in the floor running from the drawer on the outside wall to the bed. Thought that might just be the way it was framed and carpeted?

Sean

I dont recall a lip in my 34QSRL. Can you take a pic and post?

Erika

This is good to know. Our bedroom floor has been creaking for a while now. I assumed that was normal wear because we've lived in our RV full-time for the last 19 months. Or is it normal for us?

Sorry, no photos of the "lip." It was something you could feel in your stocking feet under the carpet, between the foot of the bed and the dresser, running fore and aft. Creaked pretty good if you stepped on it. The service write up for it was pretty extensive. They pulled the bed and slide mechanism out, the carpeting, along with the mirror doors and washer/dryer in the closet and replaced the decking and welded some 1x1 support angles in someplace. Opened up the front cap, too. All under warranty in Oct., 2009. The motor on the awning was also replaced during that "visit." That's another story.

So, my advice is if your trailer is still under warranty, or even if it's not, if the floor squeaks, get it checked out. Could be minor, could be major. The main reason we took our rig in was the awning motor. I mentioned the bedroom floor squeak to the Service Advisor as we were going through some other adjustments I wanted on the rear slides, almost as an afterthought. She dug into it and called us with what she found.

Hey Dave! Sorry to hear about your floors : ( How do guys deal with extended service issues? Do you just stay in a hotel or something? We just started fulltiming a month ago, so not sure how to handle those things yet.

Sean