O'BERRY Enterprises 3251 Squeak Replacement Screw (50 Count)

Does what it says, excellent

The Squeak No More system and screws are the best product on the market for quieting squeaky floors, bar non. To use these screws, you’ll need their starter kit with the proper tools needed to drive the screws into the sub flooring and floor joists. I already had the kit, so these extra screws were bought to fix our noisy stairs to the second floor. I used an impact driver and it drove these screws down tight. They have a wax coating, so they won’t snag any carpeting while driving them. I’ve also driven them at an earlier date through vinyl easily, barely seeing the hole left behind. Don’t buy any off name brand, these are the best out there and WORK! Just follow their instructions and you’ll be very happy.

These are a good solution for older homes that may have original hardwood floors where the nail holes holding the subfloor and joist together have become larger than the nails themselves over time due to expansion and contraction.Nonetheless, it's good to know how your floor was constructed to be able to maximize their effectiveness. If you can see the joists below on a 1st floor for example, it helps a lot. If you are on a second floor, you are trying to locate joists and sometimes it is impossible that you end up just putting in a bunch of these anyway. In my 100 year old house, the subfloor is actually comprised of 1 inch boards so there is more potential for squeaks to come from the hardwood floor and subfloor and the subfloor and joist.At the same time, depending on how thick the hardwood and subfloor are these may not be effective regardless. They are also hit or miss if they will break off as you torque them down. In my particular case, I gave up on using the "hardwood" slot in the tool and just used the "softwood" part. For my floors, I felt the "softwood" part wouldn't allow the screw to get deep enough so I would remove tool and tightened them down another couple turns. That seemed to help a lot for reducing noise while still being able to break them off manually.For some squeaks, you may end up making your floor look like swiss cheese if you really want to eliminate it completely. In many cases, the squeak will dampen a bit and that was good enough for me. If you find a good wood putty color match, the holes are not noticeable at all. I assume in many homes that would find these screws useful, the floors are going to have their own character from wear and tear from decades of use that it will just blend in anyway.They do make a longer version of these screws designed for decking, but I haven't been able to find a box of 250 of them like you can buy here. For the longer ones, it seems you have to buy the "starter kit" each time of 50 that comes with the breakaway die.

No more squeak at all …

These screws are easy to use, and do not break while drilling.

These work well for securing the floorboards to the joists. The problem I have is finding the joists even using the provided drill (joist finder). It looks easy in the videos I've watched but in practice it's not obvious when I've hit a joist. Once you find the joist these screws and the jig that sets the depth of the screw work well.

These screws break off just above the last thread below the head, no matter how deeply they are driven. You want them to break off IN the subfloor. But that might not always happen.If the break point is above your subfloor and under the carpet pad, and you break off the head thinking squeaks gone and you are done, then putting your barefoot weight there will feel just like you stepped on a nail point- Ouch!You say, "I won't do that!" But the problem is that the points on the 3-footed drill jig (that come with the tool kit) are assumed to touch all the way down through the pad onto the hard subfloor in order to be accurate-- about 2" deep in the underlayment, leaving 1" above it. But if you eyeball the screw height above the carpet, especially based on success with 25 prior screws in lineoleum or hardwood, you will likely break the screw off ABOVE the subfloor in the carpet pad. FAIL Getting them out is tough when the head is gone.HERE IS HOW TO REMOVE SCREWS WITH HEAD BROKEN OFF:Mark the screw points with washers or coins for 2 days so nobody steps on them. Then:I suggest ordering the PZ-58 or PZ-59 Screw Removal pliers on this site, and use these to back out the screw bodies. This was the only thing that worked for me. Vice grips just twisted and slipped around the round screw body as I tried to back the screw body out. PZ-58 (or maybe lineman's type) pliers have grooves in both the vertical and horizontal directions to grip the round screw shaft or wire. That makes them really different from vice grips. Push the pliers into the carpet around the screw body as far as you can, and twist counter clockwise until the threads back out.Also, if a screw is really stubborn and the pliers do slip at first or your hand gets tired, use a 1/16" drill bit to drill 4 holes around the stuck screw body right through the pad and into the subfloor. You won't see the holes later. The small diameter 1/16" bit won't snag much carpet, at least not on economy and cheaper wall-to-wall carpet. Then these rascals will back out without breaking your wrist.Stay calm, and well, wear gloves.

These really do work. We tried shims in the basement ceiling but these go in the carpet and work great to get rid of the squeaky floor.