An LA reader wrote in with a question dear to our own nerdy, gaming hearts:
Dear AT,
My girlfriend and I live in a multistory unit building, where we reside in one of the upper units. We're avid Dance Dance Revolution players, but we've noted that our enthusiastic moves create a lot of floor squeaking. We don't want to bother the neighbors below, but we also don't want to give up one of our favourite exercise pastimes in our small apartment. Any ideas?
-aspectratio
As a fellow gamer and upstairs resident, I relate to this very dilemma. In fact, to the chagrin of my better half, I initially got rid of our original DDR pads because I worried about bothering our downstairs neighbor when we moved into our current unit. With a few easy adjustments, we're now able to enjoy DDR again.
Let's consider the first and easiest problem. Whether you're playing DDR or doing your favourite workout, we recommend using a rug and/or pad underneath. We purchased padded DDR pads and place our area rug underneath when playing. It dampened the sound so much, our neighbor below said he didn't even know we were dancing above (we also try to avoid high flights of fanciful footwork). This goes the same for when we're playing Wii games or doing other traditional workouts. A yoga mat or workout pad available at Target or any sporting goods store do equally great jobs of dampening the sound.
Squeaky floors are a whole other issue. Normally creaky floors are caused by loose subflooring. In older buildings, the plywood subflooring was nailed to the joist framework without an industrial adhesive, so over time the nail can dislodge and loosen. What you're hearing is flexing plywood underneath with each step of pressure. If you're willing to take out a hammer and a few 8d finishing nails, you might be able to kill that squeak according to these directions from DoItYourself.com:
To do this re-nailing job, you must make sure the nails are driven home into the floor joists. To locate the floor joists and the direction they run, peel back a bit of the carpet and pad at one wall and look for nail heads. If you don't see any, do the same on a perpendicular wall.
Once you have found the nailing pattern on the subfloor, determine the distance between floor joists, which will usually be 16 or 24 inches. Then affix a piece of 1-inch masking tape to the carpet to mark the location of each joist.
Finally, nail through the tape with a finishing nail every 6 inches, making sure to completely set the nails. This should eliminate the creaks in the floor.
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
As someone who lives under very inconsiderate neighbors, I applaud your interest in quieting your squeaking. Dance on!
view j-girl's profile
Is that the world's biggest homies collection?
view art's profile
Hahaha...no art, they're my vinyl toys collection, as I worked in the toys industry. But I must fess up, I did once have all of the Homies collection.
view gregory's profile
My friend told me to sprinle baby powder on my squeaky floors and to make sure I sweep it between the boards.* It sounds crazy but it actually worked and I've only done it twice in almost three years.
*Make sure to clean floor of powder residue, as you don't to slip on it. I used a damp sponge and made sure not to get water in between the boards.
view schnauzer's profile
Don't know about the noise, but between the toys, mini chairs and case study furniture, I would love to see more of the apartment. Can we get a house tour?
view chairgal's profile
chairgal: perhaps we'll take your advice and do a house tour of our own place in the future. But you can see a lot of our place here and also here, when we first entered AT's Smallest Coolest Apartment Contest (which led to the fortune of being invited to join the AT team!).
view gregory's profile
I could be off on this, but I recall when we built our house when I was a teenager, we used screws rather than nails to put down our subflooring. The screws supposedly wouldn't loosen over time like nails. They're harder to put in, but I think they'd be worth it. The action of walking over a place in the floor would naturally cause the nails to work themselves out. Just my $0.02...
view DavidC's profile
You could also just go talk to them. Tell them you care. Maybe they have a few nights when they are out..late enough and you could ddr to your heart's content?
view elizabet's profile
you were by far my favorite entry in smallest coolest 2006! i even saved some of those photos for personal inspiration... hope that doesn't sound too creepy... it probably does, though. oh well. (i guess it goes without saying i'd love a new house tour.)
sorry, i don't have any squeaky floor tips.
view lemonpie's profile
The baby powder trick worked in the house I grew up in but only because it was the slats themselves that were rubbing together. It wouldn't have done much to fix subfloor-squeaking.
view Andrew W's profile
how I wish my squeaky rental floors weren't covered in wall to wall carpet! I would love to re-nail, sprinkle powder, anything. I'm the top floor guilty neighbor who has to tiptoe in her own (carpeted!!!!!!!!!!grr) kitchen.
view squidlette's profile
Um, I am guessing it is less about squeaking than it is about the thudding.
I'd guess your downstairs neighbors already hate you.
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
My 12 yr old daughter is also an avid DDR player. My master bedroom is under the upstairs media room. It sounds like a herd of large ponies thundering overhead. I am not sure there is ANYTHING we could do to minimize that racket. As a parent I am glad she is moving and not vegging - unfortunately your downstairs neighbors could care less about your overall health and well-being.
I am hoping someone offers a solution. Surely there is some kind of thick mat (I am thinking a thick hard tempurpedic space age type material) that would muffle the jumping.
My friends built a new house and insulated between floors with multiple layers of egg-carton foam to minimize noise. What a great idea!!
view Kimberlina's profile
My experience is that if you put a thick enough rug or some sort of matting down first, it will muffle and/or absorb the sounds. I live on the top floor of my building and I don't get squeaks on the rug-ed or carpeted areas.
Place your DDR mat down over the rug and/or mat.
view orangejuce's profile